no need to run

it's even hotter and more humid than yesterday... and there i was, in uniform, hurrying in the blazing sun to buy something and get on the bus in time to organize the rest of it... but the bus took forever to arrive, and the antsy, irritable driver* scraped someone and it took that much longer to get home.

so i'll have to organize it tomorrow. oh, well - that kinda screws up my plans a bit.

* we stopped to pick up some people, and he turned around and began yelling at me for getting on at the back. i thought he was talking to someone else, so i turned around to make myself useful... only this aggravated him more. he got up and clambered over, calling me "kid" the whole time (i found it quite complementary, actually), and i actually laughed when i realized it was me he suspected :P

---
i woke up this morning to regina spektor, who makes great music! i especially love the calculation, but laughing with is the best video i could find.

today was definitely an improvement over yesterday, possibly helped along by my TL being on holiday, and definitely helped by a lot of chocolates (a lot) and excellent cakes at my ex-team-mate's daughter's farewell. and maybe by my achievements with my side-project (which impressed a number of people). and of course, without any doubt, it was improved by the vote.

every half-year our SC harasses us to vote a "person of the period" (like "person of the year", or "person of the month", only less inspired). this period was no exception, but i came up with a plan. i told everyone we need to vote for him, which would be our most ironic response possible. it's a way to poke fun at him, which we all need because - as i said yesterday - we can't really do anything about his being a miserable, pathetic failure.

the guys thought the idea was cute, but not serious. we have a lot of talkers around, so i can understand that... what they didn't expect was for me to send our SC a response with everyone else bcc'd -
"i vote for you! for your incomparable performance, for representing in every way possible the success of our projects - when i think of success, i think of you!"

incomparable? definitely. representative? our projects have all been sloppy and behind schedule since he took command. hysterical laughter could be heard throughout the section, and a number of the guys have joined in...

even better was his response... he thanked me heartily ^_^

i ran into a buddy from last year's course, and heard that the personnel situation of their side is almost worse than ours... our chain of command is headed by people who need to be beaten within inches of their lives with clue sticks. lots of clue sticks. wielded by us.
one of the more painful examples that he shared with me is that now all office doors are to be kept closed at all times, and access to offices will be granted with a keycard only. you want to see if your friend next door is available for a chat or a cup of coffee? send him an email, or knock and hope.

while on the topic, i caught up with the academic studies officer for a two-minute "tough, bye" conversation. it appears that it's not the end of the world if i choose to study without permission, but it is against regulation, the direct result of which is that if anything happens to me while i'm on campus i'm not insured. what a load of crap.

oh, and still on topic - we were unable to rescue lunch with sweet-chili sauce, which usually works on everything. it looked like kebabs. it probably wasn't.

i had a terrifying experience this afternoon - i thought it would put my evening plans on hold (but they're not, the french aerobic instructor is going to call me later for a drink). gco called me, and as i answered the phone something got into my eye. i don't know what it was, all i know is immediate pain and my eye opening and shutting uncontrollably - whatever it was seemed to have caused a scratch on its way, and for the next hour or so i was in pain every blink unless i held my eyelid at an awkward angle.

i was expecting it to stay that way for a lot longer, but i'm thrilled to say that while my eye's still uncomfortable, it's not stinging anymore ^_^
it got better just in time to go and celebrate by hogtying someone, then soaking him with water. this is the usual, but at the end nystire pulled out a finishing touch - a bucket of rancid wine. i didn't see that coming.

i did some grudwork on the horrible, primary project before the end of the day, and our exercise session went well (although it was quite a sweaty one, a pity that our air-conditioner's on the blink).

now to play with the gimp again (i'm enjoying all the graphic stuff), and then eat and nap before going out tonight.

staring into the screen

dammit - i spent most of my evening doing nothing.

i thought i'd get some work done on the c++ project, and i couldn't figure out why, no matter what i did, i couldn't get the compiler warnings to go away. then i realized that all of my changes were in the backup file. no shit.

the purity test: a girl i work with keeps doing really, really lame facebook ones, so i sent her the link... only now i'm in the middle of it. genius.

but i'll go to bed as soon as i'm done.

a little misunderstanding

today's post written in the order of my little memory-map-style sketch that i did on the bus while ignoring the policewoman making eyes at me. kind of cute, but still - a policewoman.

that jerk i was talking about the other day? nystire informed me today that he's actually the tool pushing the policy to see how far he can take it, and i think we need to tell him that he's taken it too far.

i had to suffer our SC in all his glory this morning; unashamedly passing the buck (and this time i actually said to him, "if everyone had your attitude nothing would get done"), and coming up with plans so pathetic that they border on ludicrous. and the giggling from others in the background doesn't really make it easier to deal with.

that's a huge issue for us - we have so many points to bring up about his mismanagement and there isn't any politically correct way to do it. the results will be very similar to those if we don't say anything, but we'll have to pay for anything that comes out of our mouths... there are still a number of us who don't feel that they can stand idly by any longer, even if the only possible reaction is to slam our feet into our mouths.

there's been definite improvement in the daily exercise - i'm doing way more push-ups :)

my primary task: a bug hunt that keeps resulting in dead ends. i've spent ages hunting through spaghetti code and i still don't know where to begin.

the cereal that i brought back from the party got put to good use today, although in real terms that means that i ate too much junk as usual. it's not unhealthy, but i need to lose the belly and it's not helping.

i at least made some headway in my side project, but i didn't spend enough time on it to make up for the disappointment of the other one.

the goto guy informed me today that because i don't like metallica - s&m my musical opinion is suspect - not only do i consider that blasphemy in and of itself, but the kid HAS NEVER HEARD any of their real, pre-load albums. DAMN.

i passed my copy of yael deckelbaum's album to one of our SC's, as part of an agreement whereby i introduce him to a bunch of indie artists. i also made it abundantly clear that because it's indie all the proceeds are important to them :)

i tried to meet with the girl in charge of the unit's external academic studies program to see if i can organize permission in spite of the bureaucratic blocks. i failed. i'll try again tomorrow.

our SC tried to make nice this afternoon with some really stupid comments. how surprising. he was trying to be funny about violence in south africa, so i shared an unsympathetic perspective and then shocked him with the story of the last "fight" i was in.
damn - finding that story got me browsing my archives again; how did i get through all that shit?!

the end of the day was cut short by cleaning the office, so by the time 6pm rolled around i'd already done some shopping and had a driver get all excited when he saw me in uniform and bouncing in a manner that can only indicate good psy-trance ^_^

speaking of uniforms - it's stinking hot outside and they don't help.

speaking of speaking of uniforms - i've been in touch (thank you, facebook!) with the only girl i've ever written letters to :)

*SHUDDER*
far too much sauce on the tuna salad.

eye-scrubbing

everything's a little sensitive at the moment...

my sister sent me an email that got me worried for my safety, but snopes put me at ease.

i forgot that someone mentioned that south african army medics replaced striking health workers...

being succinct is very important.

conclusions

a) less than an hour's sleep after deprivation and exercise: difficult to wake up from

b) all the meat left in the fridge, straight out the packet, makes a decent protein source

c) brushing my teeth twice - smooth

d) the truth: sometimes rather heartening

e) tamar eisenman is made of awesome, and i'm very glad i bought her albums

f) uploading pics and videos before going to bed... probably not a good idea, it's taking forever.

g) getting in touch with the french girl: definitely good timing :)

the beginning of a new season

i actually did clean my pad yesterday! between rooms, i went hunting for a birthday present and an element of a wedding present. i found a couple of options for both the former and the latter, and bought two copies of michael chabon - the amazing adventures of kavalier & clay (one for me, one for a gift).

i also got started on the wedding present itself: it's begun nicely, i hope i prove good enough for the finishing as well :)

then i went to train. i got to the mall a little early, so i went hunting for another element of the wedding present - a nose ring. it's very difficult to persuade tattoo-parlour workers that you're buying a ring and not planning on inserting it into your body.

the training was insane. i spent most of it working myself to dizziness, which meant stopping every now and then to breathe before rejoining the fray. this worked fine until the fighting: in the middle of a round, my body just stopped responding. that's very bad, in case you're wondering, and i had to "soak damage".

we ended the three hour training with stretching and massages. the latter was unexpected, and i taught a couple of kids a thing or two - there was much awe and wonder when i sorted out the neck and back of a girl who suffers chronic pain in the area. there is much good to be made of being a chronic sufferer myself.

i met up with karnaf for a beer and a chicken salad that was way over the top both in taste and quantity, then took my smelly self home for a shower and a two hour nap. i spent half an hour getting ready for the party, then hopped into the car with gco, his girlfriend and a friend of his from the last israeli trance party i went to (please notice the date - that's messed up).

we did some shopping at tiv tam, where i bought cupcakes. i was the only person who seemed to appreciate them. we hung around until directions to the party became available - i'd already noticed that his girlfriend wasn't at ease with the rest of us. on the way there, things turned sour and she eventually decided she was going to leave us at the party and go home.

it took gco a long time to calm her down, during which time i got to know his friend and discover a naive know-it-all ultra-liberal pseudo-politically aware ne'er-do-well. he's not a bad guy, though, and after a lengthy discussion - i'd like to say debate, i think it might well have been - we began to get along in spite of our differences.

i ran into a couple of old friends at the party, which was extremely lucky because gco's girlfriend and friend decided at 8am that they were ready to go.
faders.
and the party only got interesting about two hours later...

aside from the chicken salad and the cupcake, i had a really decent shuwarma at about 2am. since then and until around 3pm all i ate was handfuls of a really tasty cinnamon cereal, which gave a lot of people the willies and the impression that i'm a health freak. in fact, one of the guys i met later on asked me what hell someone like me was doing at a party like that :P

friends: i made a couple of new ones, really nice guys. i met them through one of the old ones, and when it was time to go i took the role of designated driver which they were all really grateful for. and i was too, both for being able to get home and for the fun of driving a manual vehicle :)

music: minimal minimal. that translates to "very boring" and "difficult to distinguish", but around 10am the dj's began injecting groove and i had a lot of fun.

people: LOVED the people! excellent crowd, beautiful faces and great big smiles, loads of silliness and the guy who got hit on the back of the neck with my frisbee didn't strike back. we did put the frisbee away, though.

venue: really nice spot, dusty as hell. excellent mist system above the dancefloor ^_^

weather: OMG. it was fantastic right until the moment the sun came out, at which point it turned into "fiery annihilation". lots of sunscreen, hats, shirts, water, and stomping in the shade (and grinning into the mist) ensued.

i wore my orange overalls, and i was surprised to get comments on how great my outfit was :)
i did manage to sleep an hour before daybreak, but i'm still amazed that i was still digging (although by that stage it was more like "patting" :P) by noon when the sound went down.

we stopped by the organizer's apartment for a couple of hours, exquisite espresso and alfajores, fun conversation, brilliant music and the intermittent passing out. i just got dropped off at home, and now that i've had a shower and set the washing machine running:

i can see my feet! now i'm clean, but how am i going to unpack my bag? do i call up the french girl from thursday night yet? i MUST brush my teeth, emergency! sleep is for mortals! zzzzzzzz...

neuron-gargling

oh, man - not even a hangover can keep me in bed, apparently. this is most unexpected {]:/

oh, well. maybe i'll clean up a bit.

tenser, said the tensor: i understand that this is good to know? maybe i should read it.

contraband on amazon: the final source for all your solutions

mixed drinks and a number

buffalo boots were amazing! and that said in spite of the terrible sound - the sound man's obviously a bit deaf.
i ran into csn's friend and a very cute french friend of hers, and then one of the mongoose's friends joined me. all in all, the evening was great fun and i got the french girl's number, in the form of a business card in response to mine :P

jumpy - did it skip a beat?

i slept through the night after posting, but i didn't feel better for it. i was sour for most of the day, although it did have its successful moments.

regarding our unsuccessful ones, however:

a) i work in an environment where nobody gives two shits how unproductive you are, just as long as you put in the mandated hours, kiss the right butt and suffer the indignities silently. how did it get so bad?!

b) our new security policy is run by that jerk that everyone loves to tease just to see how much of an ass he can make of himself. the new implementation: executables are a potential source of viruses, so software developers are now forbidden to compile to their own disk space. we can only store and run binaries in centralized locations.

my response would have been* to send a mail informing everyone that in order to save electricity we've been instructed to disconnect our physical keyboards and use the on-screen accessibility one instead.

* although everyone agrees with me, i was advised against it.

---
i'm now having my entire system jump-started by furious and excited - grabs me: i'm not certain if the energy i've got is from the week having ended, having exercised during it, having bought tickets to tomorrow's trance party, doing some unintentional shopping which resulted in my possession of two very cool, very twisty wall clocks and both of tamar eisenman's albums, or very good coffee and company at coffeeholic.

or, it could be because i'm now leaving for tonight's performance by buffalo boots :)

raining out

the day started off all wrong: i realized as i walked out that i'd left my sunglasses at the gym last night.

i can't believe i let my TL put me in such a pissy mood today - i'm still irritable in the extreme. some of it's to do with tiredness, but the majority of the day was overshadowed by his constantly walking in and out of the office, staring at my screen and making snide remarks if anything other than Priority One was open.

by the end of the day i'd developed a headache, had been staring at the same piece of annoying code for almost an hour and had had enough - and i let it out. an unpleasant couple of minutes, but he seems to understand what i'm getting at (kind of, it's more like he'll let me work like i normally do if i think it'll cause less outbursts)... we'll see what tomorrow brings.

something clicked into place during a conversation today: during the big talk i had a couple of weeks ago i was told that one of the possible outcomes is that nothing will happen. i suddenly realized that it really is possible, and it really is the worst outcome i can imagine at the moment. how is my work environment getting me this down?!

i can't decide if i should sleep or go for a run. i just came back from the gym, where i found my glasses, and i was broody the whole way there and back. not cool.

negative! i am a human ________!

dammit! i passed out after turning on the a/c, and now i'm shivering and worried about getting sick. and it's been such a healthy few days!

summary
the first day, sunday, we arrived at the vacation base, changed into exercise gear and began - aerobics, step, exercise ball, and kickboxing, followed by good frisbee in the pool.

the lessons were tough for me, and not just physically - at one point the cute girl taking the class screamed at us "suck your bellies in!", then walked past me, smacked mine and repeated her instruction. i was holding my tummy in.

so day 1 - rediscovered whole sets of muscles and wore myself out.

the second day saw an early wake-up for pilates, then a return to bed before spinning began. i *knew* spinning would be bad for me. we played volleyball in the afternoon, with everyone agreeing with my strategy verbally and then coming up with excuses as to why they couldn't play it properly. we won a game based on luck, then sucked it the second one.

at least our pool frisbee was great :)

day 3: the end of the exercise, and i don't know if scrubbing dishes counts. what i do know is that rejoining the taekwondo group in the evening was a terrific idea, a very serious but fun workout and i definitely have to get my act together and get there regularly.

my body is sore, but i feel good.

other stuff

day 1:
shave, pack, dress like a human being; i met the kinder on the way to the train, and we talked all the way until my stop.

we paid a visit to my team-mate's parents' vineyard in the desert. they have a huge, successful vineyard. in the middle of the desert. it's crazy and wonderful :) [and they have a piano outside on a small hill overlooking the vines]

in the evening we had our annual israeli trivia competition. the guys running it really invested a lot, they built a walkable monopoly board with giant dice, and wrote a program to handle everything... only when it came to the actual management of the game they screwed everything up.

and then, to make matters worse, i managed to land on "go to jail" - not just once, but twice. so not cool.

day 2:

we watched an episode of hell's kitchen and the tail end of the sixth sense, both of which were a lot of fun. we paid a visit to a base that it turns out quite a few of us would like to move our offices to - closer to the results of our work, and with much nicer people (and pretty girls, too). yeah, we know it won't happen.

our SC, the world's biggest doofus, is throwing his weight around like a king because of his new accessory - his bluetooth headset. i haven't been able to stop smirking, giggling and commenting for three days now }:)

the music evening on the second day was horrible. our SC sang, making it worse.

day 3:

comparing tattoos in the kitchen with a fellow trance-bunny, bouncing to great tracks while making light work of the clean-up.

it was beautiful in the desert.

after a long distance travelled we had sandwiches and threw the frisbee around, then went through a tour of the beer / fruit drink facilities and watched videos that prove that you shouldn't pay your director with your alcoholic product.

i was a bit agitated when i got home, but i went shopping and was on my way to dizengoff when i called my taekwondo instructor to tell her i need to get back into shape. she invited me to join them...

so i trained, got a small book standand a compliment from the cute girl at the art store :)

i hung out laundry when i got home, then went off to cinema city with sjo to see the transformers sequel (very cool), and we got a ride back with crasher who i haven't seen in a long time. four hours later...

to the better end

a very pleasant walk (a beautiful sunset), enough time for a beer, and then i went downstairs to be wowed by ma'ayan hirschbein and liad sher - phenomenal performance!

we stood outside for ages, then split up, and two of us went to ze sushi for... you guessed it. i've just got back, am about to shower, finish packing for a trip that i really don't want to go on, and i should be back tuesday to bitch about how lame it was.

another weekend slipped through my fingers

that uneasy feeling just got worse. i went past coffeeholic, but the new girl was there so i made a sharp turn left and headed for the atm, which wasn't ready to sprout cash for me. i suddenly began to feel horrible, so i came back home and lay down for a while... then i went for a walk to the beach, where after watching the surfers for a bit i returned to coffeeholic.

this time the guys i was looking for were there. i dropped off the panic ensemble disc and had a good cup of iced espresso, eventually feeling a bit of improvement and coming back to churn out a few lines of code.

soon i'll be off to another performance of ma'ayan hirschbein, this time i'll be walking and not relying on public transport.

stretch my brain

silent witness
in cold blood, i stand
watching as your tear at yourself
and flail
frozen, blood curdling
cold sweat and hot guilt
for to cry out would bind
these hands
forever

leary on drugs is full of intriguing insights - that's the point, really. i read this morning about the american government's fear of hedonism leading to the empire's downfall... it does explain the drug prohibition. it makes it a bit more insidious, in fact.

i'm uneasy, i've been trying to get some work done on the next section of the c++ project and i just can't concentrate. i'm heading outside for a breath of, well, the same air as i get in here.

infantile snooze (ii)

sjo and i met across from rabin square, and sat down at the wannabe-posh 24-hour place (can never remember its name). nobody looked at us twice, we sat down at a free table and chatted while waiting for the waitron to arrive... she eventually did, only to go and find the manager so she could inform us that we were sitting at a reserved table.

either you're serious about service, or you aren't. if you don't have somebody on the lookout for new customers, then don't treat those that do arrive like they've made a mistake. i won't be going back there. we walked his bicycle to my place, i put on my blades, and we rolled on to shine.

the table we were seated at (the only outside one available) wasn't good, and they only served boiled eggs: a total deal-breaker. we didn't have to look too far though, bleaker's is on the next corner and the food, service and setting were all great. of course, it's one of those places i walk past all the time and never stop at... that shall be remedied.

their salmon parisian was downgraded to a poached egg and salmon sandwich (croissant shortage, and i can see why), but the tapas and salad held it together and the dessert was brilliant: it's a bakery at heart :)

in order to work off the food, i joined sjo all the way to his place and then continued on home, stopping at a shop to get some orange juice and be asked to put my shirt back on. this is how i know that to the east of ibn gvirol is no longer really tel aviv :P

i watched an episode of battlestar galactica, showered and went on my way back to the dark side of tel aviv to her apartment, and she and her boyfriend gave me a ride to her grandparents' place for dinner.

dinner was too good - i'm stuffed. and the pavlova and cake at the end were incredible! we watched wall-e, then i got a ride home. i'm exhausted, i think it's bedtime.

infantile snooze

i tried to sleep after posting, but failed. i tried meditating, and arrived at a Very Important Conclusion. i remembered that i need to take control of my situation, that letting my army issues get the better of me is not okay. in fact, after thinking about this for a while and focusing on where my head should be, i felt the urge to make the most of my evening.

that's how i got to coffeeholic, in time for the guy there to make me an incredibly generous beef parisian (as in, *stuffed* with beef and cheese) and to catch a number of friendlies for good conversation. i was on my way back when his girlfriend rocked up, and that kept me on my seat for another ten minutes until i remembered that i had laundry to deal with :P

i slept through the night - and like a baby! i woke up around 9am, made some phone calls and went to the post office to pick up a poster for my team (team spirit, i'll display it even if i don't have it), then shopped for and found a decent whiteboard. after installing it, enjoying a cup of coffee and a wonderful article on my patio, i tidied up the place a bit and then went to get a bottle of chivas for her grandfather's birthday.

on the way, i ran into one of my niece's best friends and her boyfriend, so i sat down with them to hear that my niece will be crashing my pad shortly - we all found this highly amusing, i had no clue :P

i came home and did some sorting through my papers, while watching some episodes of invader zim and playing a bit of tekken, then went to meet sjo for lunch.

<to be continued, gotta go out for dinner>

not enough caffeine?

yesterday was a day in the oven. with the fan on.

i was completely bombed, having slept 3.5 hours after two nights of exercise and my thighs were agonizingly sensitive the entire day.
i learned more about .net security - namely that it's bleeding impossible to write a program that can access anything over a network, and i found out that the "richtextbox" is useful.

i also spent a lot of it horribly aware of my oversized belly, and the quantity of rubbish i consume on an hourly basis. am i eating because i'm unhappy? should i take up smoking again? [probably not]

i got some satisfaction from the c++ project, at least. the guy called to say he's very happy with it :)

we went to an event last night that was absolutely mind-boggling. i'm not going to discuss the ridiculously long drive in both directions, or the sub-standard food and terrible seating. the show itself was freaky: a lot of kids singing strange songs really badly, and they had a gorram circus on stage. like, juggling, and stilts, breakdancing... wtf?!?!

and the speakers were bored. and the MC doesn't appear to have a sense of humour so his jokes were out of place.

at the end we sang the national anthem. the creepy bit is that i *forgot* to salute - i'm still a bit embarrassed about it. at least nystire was standing behind me to hiss a reminder.

the laughter came at 1am, being dropped off at the train station. the girl who gave me a ride wasn't comfortable because she's afraid of the tunnel that i had to use. if this was south africa, or new york, or somewhere where crime is a problem... maybe i'd have been cautious. i couldn't stop giggling the whole way; especially when i entered and saw the colourful new lighting they've installed.

...

today began with a cranberry-flavoured energy drink, had a guarana break in the middle and ended with strong turkish coffee: i'm still completely buggered.

as it is i'm lucky i managed to reach my alarm after only half an hour of beeping, i had ten minutes to shave, dress and be outside waiting for the damn bus. i spent most of the day working on the fun project, and the last part of it breaking my head over irritating problems with other things.

no-go: nystire and i were on our way to oversee the culmination of a project we were responsible for last year, when we got a message from our SC: only one can be present. the man *really* knows how to improve motivation.

studies: because i have *no* clue if i'll be a civilian by the time the next semester begins, it looks like i'll have to forgo my return to academia this year. i'm not happy about that. i'll have to check out correspondence courses, but that's *so* not the same.

seeing as i had nothing to lose, i upset my TL by asking him if he'd allow me the time to study in spite of my non-adherence to the bureaucratic oath... he was mortified. i'm sorry to say that that didn't make me feel particularly bad.

shower, bed, and maybe i'll go out tonight.

what's another 30km?

once home, i spent a couple of hours debugging an extremely strange error - the weirdest ones are often caused by the tiniest typos, i'd typed "i" instead of "j" when performing a merge and it took forever to find out that i was inserting zeroes into the resulting array.
the good news is that once i fixed that, everything worked the way it should - it was batch job (everything dependent on everything else), so that kind of means something to me.

i went blading! that was a very, very serious route we did tonight - a pity about the sandy bits, especially the one where some idiot cut in front of me and forced me into a pit of it :/ (now i have to clean the wheels properly, that sucks)

that was mostly a different set of muscles from last night, but the ones that i used twice - like my thighs - are burning. and i'm quite pleased :)

i should be consuming proteins, not an apple - but i don't have anything convenient :/

yay! i have to get up in 3.5 hours. dammit.

slightly bitter

the bad news is my mum's, i'm absolutely distressed that she's working for a man who's making her life difficult; getting in the way of her doing what she's paid for. if she wasn't so success-driven that she's putting in the overtime to manage it all anyway, i wouldn't really care so much.

i'm praying for a positive phone-call to inform me that she's solved the problem. in the meanwhile, i'll just remain angry with the bastard.

---
i have an amusing ant problem. if there're any remains on the sink's metal cover, i have an almost-instantaneous stream of ants flowing around it. when it's clear, they disappear. so no problem :)

the day began with me being too honest about my SC with another SC on the way to work - and then wondering if maybe it'll pass on to him as a rumour... i don't think it would really help, but it couldn't cause too much harm, either.

i discovered this morning that it's illegal for me to study, on my own time and with my own money, in an institute of learning without applying for and receiving authorization from my unit. our unit commander has decided, in his infinite wisdom, that there will be no more authorizations. i *love* the army.

we had two lectures this morning, one from better place and another on defensive driving.

a) the better place solution isn't perfect, but it's a far sight better than the situation than we're in right now. and that's OKAY. some idiots were nitpicking and suggesting that it's a waste of time.

b) the driving tips and "insights" are basic tenets, common knowledge and general rules of the road... just not in israel. it's really aggravating to see so many puzzled faces and hear so much arguing when the lecturer says things like "you should look ahead" and "concentrate on driving".

i sewed a shirt pocket decently, ate too much cake, and spent the afternoon's free time fixing a useful excel file and planning a really interesting assistant application. i was most pleased when my TL turned to me and said "wow! you're actually using your development tools! i thought you were going to waste them like everyone else".

obviously we're not talking here about our primary work tools :P
it's nice to be appreciated, though. especially by the guy who's been holding me back for the last half a year.

breezy, pretty evening

work days never seem to begin too well, but when i've spent two weeks organizing a section breakfast and then two different groups of people decide that we don't need the room we reserved early especially, i can't quite let it slide. we kept it in the end, and for more time than was originally booked, but there was no need to force us to "prove" our right.

the breakfast was crazy - the food was great and we definitely brought more than enough. two birthday boys arrived, and the cakes they brought are going to last us most of tomorrow at the very least :) [and they're darn good cakes]

one of the guys came to pay me back for something, and i was talking to nystire so he stood behind me and dropped the coins on my chest. nystire made a cheeky comment about my sexual value, and in jest he rubbed my chest... his shock, surprise and running away made us all hysterical - he didn't expect to feel my nipple ring :D
(and this is a guy who tells obscene jokes non-stop)

immediately after breakfast we all went to a farewell ceremony for lunch. busy day. the only food available was pizza, so i hung around until they were into the eating then made an exit. i ate alone in the mess, but the food was sort-of alright so it wasn't a terrible experience.

i spent the day trying to convince my TL to include a critical path project in his priorities list. i made an inspired tweak on one of my applications (i cheated hebrew ASCII out of windows, i'm very proud of myself), came up with a plan for a simple future app that could really help us and learned to use a mechanism that i've been dreading touching since i last played with it.

damn you, microsoft excel! damn you! why do i have to "paste special" when i want to copy cell contents?!?! bastards.

[break to hang out washing]

i got home, changed clothes and went off to orange again to try and get a battery. this time the guy had the good grace to make it clear that it's better to find another reseller or buy online :S

i don't know what possessed me to go for a run. today i got back into listening to progressive rock again (i've been listening to psychedelic for the last few weeks), and it just seemed... right. the influence of this month's wired can't be ignored, though.

the advantage of proper running shorts: immediate feedback.
1) must tan upper legs
2) must correct flabby buttocks

the park was absolutely beautiful this evening, and i need to start wearing the pedometre because i'll be damned if i didn't run a personal best tonight - and that's after not feeling particularly well and not exercising in weeks.

great news! the response i got from the advisor? "your writing sample is more than fine" ^_^

*PHEW!*

and now i need to do some work on this poor bastard's c++ project.

*how* many hours?!

i can't believe i did that: i went to bed at 9pm, slept through the night and am still tired!

this can't be good.

i suppose something positive did come out of it, though. i decided to read myself to sleep, and getting into milton made me feel productive as well as entertained :)

sunday blues

today was difficult, for a number of reasons.

1. apparently, i am no longer exempt from reserve duty and that makes a certain promise i made last week impossible to keep. it took me a large part of the day to realize that it doesn't matter, but it did cause me to fret.

2. i was still concerned about the master's problem until the late afternoon, when i spoke to wr and he reassured me. the only thing that really bothers me now is that the advisor still hasn't sent a single word back in my direction.

3. i was very, very tired today. exhausted. and i wasted most of it staring unhelpfully at badly written comments. it doesn't help if you comment every line but don't discuss the point of what you're doing.

idiots.

oh, of course: on workplace motivation. this dude is too damn right.

on the lighter side of things, i managed to organize a surgery date to have an irritating spot removed, i got hold of a company who can send someone over to perform an insurance evaluation, and i actually did alright with basic exercises.

i'd be more proud of that last item if i hadn't consumed so much junk-food. continuously. the entire day.

oh, yes. i *love* the massage chair.

a fundamental truth about porn

incredible ISS photos

an extremely cool record player

when i can't speak...

i made some headway with the c++ project this morning, then went to the beach for some great frisbee. the beach was packed, the weather was hot and clear.

when i got back home i immediately turned on the a/c (which is happening frequently enough that it's being contracted), showered and turned in for a nap. crazy dreams, i'm not sure how much they were influenced by having really dark full-on trance in the background.

i've been broody the whole day, and i'm inclined to think it's largely based on yesterday's discussion with ru55's fiancée: the more i think about it, the more i realize that she's right. the whole master's degree thing comes from a different academic culture where the undergrad is to learn how to learn, but in literature it's way more than that.

the discussion, the arguments and the exposure are a big deal. i return once again to having an issue with doing another full-time degree. it's a different head-space, not a real "problem" as such. in the meanwhile, i'm undecided.

i left on time to get to einav jackson cohen's performance (featuring michal geva), but all the shuttles were full and i stood at the stop for almost an hour before the bus came. seriously, locals should receive preference.

so i missed a couple of songs, but what i got to see was great :)
in fact, michal geva performed way better than she did with her own band :P

afterwards, i couldn't decide what to eat and eventually settled on soup. the soup place is closed until winter... so i went to ze sushi. my taekwondo buddy was there - i couldn't think straight and was very glad that i didn't have to place an order. after the soup and some caffeine i could talk again (i didn't mention it, but i've been fuzzy all day) and i had a very pleasant meal.

have i been home for an hour already? i've been online too long.

i am not familiar with apparently inherent functions: merge(x.suck(), y.suck()) with both merge() and suck() undefined compiles perfectly. it's definitely past my bedtime.

re-evaluate

i joined ru55 and his fiancée with our irish austrian (one of ze germans).

1) their wedding invitation is stunning!
2) she had something very important to tell me: it's very possible that completion courses won't be enough even if i am accepted into the master's program. as i told her, i'm ready and willing to dive in and see what's up, but if it looks like i won't be able to hold my head above the waterline then continuing with another BA isn't exactly a problem.

it's excruciatingly hot again. damn.

on the way out i ran into the sergeant who made my first steps in the army uncomfortable. we had a pleasant chat that actually turned into a very amusing one - time does heal most things.

too convincing

the letters of my fantasy
or my doom,
spill out upon a yellowed page
accompanying the heady beating of my chest
as cold sweat and a halo of gloom

as I stare into those eyes of love
deceitful and betrayed

we both have cause to feel suspect
suspicious friends
suspicious dialect
each waxy drip of truth smears dark
sealing my fate, my coffin lies erect

sealed in the cold, dead ground
deceitful and betrayed

heart up, soul down
refreshed, clear, deep underground
to stare oneself down, disbelieving
choke, gobble, while vomiting

releasing but a flash of light
as I stare into those eyes of love

here is a devil who comes out the other side,
a patronising grin receives each smudge
a brotherly hand touches shoulder and cries
the hawk-eyed mute led by the blind

who consents and shuts his lids
sealed in the cold, dead ground

not knowing if it's the fall he feels
or his ascent towards his princess' hand
to be wrapped in rapture, and hide his smile
to shed those glowing tears of pride

who consents and shuts his lids
releasing but a flash of light
as I stare into those eyes of love
deceitful and betrayed

good, bad, ugly?

i'm taking a break, the second one, from watching the good, the bad and the ugly. it's frikkin' long. good, but long.

tasteless corner

farrah fawcett died and went to heaven. god gave her one wish. she wished for all of the children of the world to be safe, so god killed michael jackson

and

jacko wasnt in the cardiac ward- he was in the childrens ward having a stroke...

(i thank k-twang and a mutual friend for these two, the first funny ones of the entire day)

continuing from my last post:
i shopped, made myself a mini-sandwich and then met up with karnaf for breakfast. after breakfast i joined ze germans for a while. i walked most of the way back home with one of them, the returned to be grateful for the air-conditioner and to try and watch the movie. i passed out for a while, then showered, learned about cleaning tiles and toilets and finally resumed watching.

i've just spent a short while turning random scribblings into a song, and playing it - only i feel confident that when my playing improves i'm going to keep the words and nothing else :P
in case there's any doubt, it's about wednesday.

acquisitive morning

and i haven't had breakfast yet. i payed for last night's eats, took away a cup of iced-espresso, and had a shirt made that came out far prettier than i'd anticipated:

front ^_^ back

i hunted cushions and throws, but the places i found last week were the only ones that had stuff i really like. so i'm sorted with happy psychedelic colours and i've hung out the laundry, now i'm shopping and then i *have* to eat!

buzz aldrin has a new plan

king nothing

the poor sod's sad tale has come to an end, and nobody will be talking about him for long - that's the world of pop, and pop obscurity [lyrics].

out in flames is the way to go, and rock and roll is the way to stay.

leached heat

the mediterranean lapped up the excess heat, the sunset was as beautiful as the day had been muggy, and the beer and great music helped too. by the time i left i felt a far sight better.

i was thinking sushi, but the traffic lights directed me past coffeeholic. i stopped to say hi, got sucked into a conversation that turned into a raging debate that had us going at each other for hours.

and there i was thinking that i was going to spend the evening coding.

i'm doing a bit now, but i'm beat and will probably be crashing soon.

marching past mach

the week went by incredibly fast! aside from yesterday, the last two weeks have been flat-out work and i'm thoroughly enjoying it :)

a) my TL couldn't handle the dvd menu for the first firefly disc, so he didn't watch it. EPIC FAIL.
then he couldn't understand why we were laughing at him for telling us.

b) one of the guys in our section catered today in honour of a corps celebration. he prepared all the food himself, and it was absolutely wonderful - including chocolate bananas, and tapioca. i can't recall ever tasting tapioca before, and it was brilliant.

i was certain that it was something consumed in ancient rome, but i just found out that that's because it's the name of a character in asterix.

c) boss mail fail: our SC sent a mail explaining to us that the conditions we get apropos holidays in the army are - to the best of his knowledge - way better than anything we'll get as civilians. the amusing bit is that we're suffering the worst vacation situation there could possibly be, and so i sent a mail around reassuring everyone that life outside is better.

the incredible part? our village idiot sent a follow-up supporting me.

the even more incredible part? the two of us came up with a plan for getting work done more efficiently by cutting out our commanders until final authorization. we found out that quite a few of us have been doing this, apparently - that's very sad.

d) i am familiar with disgustingly hot. what this is is unacceptably gross and difficult.

now i'm taking a beer and a book to the beach.

the not-so-good, the good, the bad and the amusing

the "something special" earlier turned out to be good, but less than special - there's a new girl working at the coffeeholic, and while she may be pretty she just doesn't have what it takes to achieve their coffee standard and make amazing parisians.

i tried napping when i got home, but that didn't last long. i sorted out some papers, and got to work on the c++ project... although i haven't gotten very far. it might be because i keep distracting myself, primarily with the guitar. i'm really enjoying it :)

i can't believe that it just suddenly got hot enough to put on the air-conditioner - second time this summer. i don't like using it, on principle.

thanks to qc's twitter feeds, i've just learned about the lyttle lytton contest - and just finished giggling hysterically while reading this year's winners :)

it's hard being honest

so the day is done, and i have made what is hopefully the correct decision. it will take a while to find out, in the meanwhile - life goes on.

i can't believe piles is out! the farewell ceremony for him was quite sweet, although i wasn't quick enough to grab food. it was great as usual to see everyone :)

i'm off to treat myself to something special.

a small point

when a man offers me a fantasy that i desire, it's difficult to gauge its authenticity.

smooth... boom!

i forgot to mention the canadian harassment that i suffered at the show last night: some idiot came up to me, looked me over and asked if i was a policeman. wtf?!
after i answered in the negative, he brought in the kicker: "yeah, i want to be a policeman". everyone i've told this to has had the same response i did: a raised eyebrow and "uh, huh... well, good luck with that" :S

i wasn't feeling well at all this morning. the fasting might not have helped. after all of us waiting for blood tests had been forced to drink pretty grim, stale water, i watched a girl walk out quite unhappily, and so expected the worst.
the drawing was a pleasure, oddly enough - and as usual i felt better for it. adrenaline? dunno.

another day of work - w00t! and lunch wasn't bad at all.

we have this culture of re-inventing the wheel... i got irritated this afternoon because i needed to translate a bunch of binary fractions to decimal, so i wrote a cute little application that does it for me. the funny thing is that my TL sees it as wasting time... as far as he's concerned it's better if we all continue to waste little bits of time forever.

standing in the corridor speaking to nystire and a girl in our section about how i've had to do sneaky things in order to get a job done that my TL doesn't understand the importance of... i didn't realize he was sitting close enough to hear. i hope the smile means that he'll turn a blind eye, and not that he'll keep one on me :/

i came home, had my cousin introduced me to monotonix; they seem like a band i would love to see live :)

panic ensemble was absolutely magnificent - i felt in the presence of greatness and was completely swept away! pure magic ^_^
i understand that the singer is not the professor, which is a pity but i'm sure i'll get over it :P

i really enjoyed playing with my guitar this evening, and i did something nasty to amazing grace that i'm growing quite fond of ;)
i think i'm going to play some more, shower, then get some shut-eye. tomorrow is a big, big day. or so i think. i don't have a clue.

fasting sleepy

i arrived on base in time for lunch, and worked a bit before going to visit the doctor.
we gave up on .net's security "features" and managed to find a working installation of visual basic 6, so replacing hours of work with a two minute patch that did the job nicely :/
i'd call the day a success just because we managed to persuade one of our providers to do something useful for us :P

the final note of the day: i had to take a team-mate aside and explain to him exactly what was explained to me last year - no matter how stupid or inappropriately behaved, you can't shout at anyone in the office. you have to take a deep breath and be polite.

travelling to jerusalem with wr was highly amusing :)
during the discussion i discovered that if i get accepted to the university one of my teachers will be a girl i'm a *huge* fan of! and i hear she's amazing as a teacher as well ^_^

i talked to the guy whose c++ project i'm helping with, and had a hard time explaining that regardless of the marks he gets for the project, he needs to inform someone that the algorithm being used isn't correct. it's a published paper with a flaw; someone should care.

---
rent on a rooftop:
not bad for an amateur production, although it would've been better if i'd expected an amateur production. the most notable issue i had was that they were acting, instead of being their characters. that, and the fact that most of the leads' voices really don't cut the mustard.

they did improve towards the end, but i have to admit that the possibility exists that i might just not be a big fan of puccini (or larson). i don't know. the script didn't speak to me. also, i felt that the sing-song used for the regular speech was a bit much, at least in contrast to the acting.

---an odd question arose: how much damage can one do throwing a strawberry?

i spoke to my mum on the bus, and the conversation was a very dark one. we missed the point by discussing the details: no matter how bad tomorrow is, i'm going to be just fine in the big picture. there's nothing more important in this story than knowing who i am and what i'm about, and if the system wants to make a mistake because i couldn't tell a lie*? so be it.

* okay, it's not as simple as that, but the point stands.

the ride home's sleep was just like last week's - wonderful :)

i'm half-asleep, and i've been fasting since last night so no coffee for me... i have blood tests in an hour or so. uniform on.

late? busy!

i arrived a few minutes late to the city engineering building; "you have missed your appointment. please make a new one".

yeah, right. instead, i took a number and waited a whole five minutes.

i stopped for coffee and a very interesting chat with the chef and a couple of other patrons, then wended [is that a legitimate form of the word?] my way to the city council building.

their renovations went well.
a very cute girl was extremely helpful, and that might be the last visit i'll pay them for a while. on my way back, i ran into the caretaker's assistant and we had a productive chat. hopefully things'll start happening soon :)

aaaaaaaand now that i've hung out the laundry, it's time to go to work.

got my sandwich!

i went shopping, and just had time to slap together a sandwich before heading out for cinema city. as luck would have it, i arrived in time for both buses and got there pretty quickly - it's either a pleasure or a pain from here.

terminator salvation is very freakin' cool. i loved it, loved the atmosphere and enjoyed the story. i wasn't so smitten by the series, and i thought christian bale was going to be a bit disappointing after his freak-out, but neither of those things got in the way.

the ride back was absolutely wonderful - the back of a bike going at high speed on a warm summer's night is incredible.

i browsed through wired's 100 geeks you should be following on twitter (i'm SO glad i don't do twitter!), and clicked on one of kevin smith's links that indicates that obesity is winning and we need to worry about a wall-e-type future.

all european life died in auschwitz

[just received in the mail]

By Sebastian Vilar Rodrigez(*)

I walked down the street in Barcelona, and suddenly discovered a
terrible truth - Europe died in Auschwitz.
We killed six million Jews and replaced them with 20 million Muslims.

In Auschwitz we burned a culture, thought, creativity, talent. We
destroyed the chosen people, truly chosen, because they produced great and
wonderful people who changed the world.
The contribution of this people is felt in all areas of life: science,
art, international trade, and above all, as the conscience of the world.
These are the people we burned.
And under the pretense of tolerance, and because we wanted to prove to
ourselves that we were cured of the disease of racism, we opened our
gates to 20 million Muslims, who brought us stupidity and ignorance,
religious extremism and lack of tolerance, crime and poverty due to an
unwillingness to work and support their families with pride.
They have turned our beautiful Spanish cities into the third world,
drowning in filth and crime.
Shut up in the apartments they receive free from the government, they
plan the murder and destruction of their naive hosts.
And thus, in our misery, we have exchanged culture for fanatical
hatred, creative skill for destructive skill, intelligence for backwardness
and superstition.
We have exchanged the pursuit of peace of the Jews of Europe and their talent for hoping for a better future for their children, their determined clinging to life because life is holy, for those who pursue death, for people consumed by the desire for death for themselves and others, for our children and theirs.

What a terrible mistake was made by miserable Europe.

This is a translation of an article from a Spanish newspaper.

a VERY interesting response

terminating!

i didn't feel too good today, i'm concerned about getting sick again :'(

over four hours today went to a system-wide malfunction, so at least i did get a bit of sleep. i hope it helped.

the kinder is a bastard! he got the package, opened it, liked the idea, and didn't call anyone. dammit!

nystire thinks that entering a robot is a good idea. i think he's right.

i just got home, ran into an old army buddy on the way and introduced him to invader zim. i still love the first episode :D

on my way to see the new terminator movie with yogi - sweet :)

just another hour off sleep-time

i'm shocked at how interested i am - it's been a while.

mark: define

has it been two hours already?! i've completed the class declaration for part one, and i think i have a handle on the definition. i know i've enjoyed myself.

cold read

the kayak killed me! aside from being completely out of shape with regards the muscles required for the exercise, i think the combination of not having felt good earlier and wearing a second-skin that was too close for comfort was what really caused the trouble.

on the way back in, i flipped - and couldn't get up. even the instructor got tired of seeing me climb up and fall over the other side that many times :$
eventually, though - after he'd let me go, i *did* manage to get back in! all by myself! but i was wiped-out for the rest of the session.

after coffee, four of us (the chef, his girlfriend and another girl) lay on the beach or floated in the water, and then went to the pretzel place (bretzel) for lunch. i didn't realize that they do such a wide range of stuff, and it's *really* good!

one of the coffeeholic regulars joined us for a beer, and on the way to the coffeeholic (the chef's shift) we had an argument that got out of hand, only to get to a point where we realized that we were arguing two sides of the same coin - it's been a very, very long time since i've argued philosophy with someone who didn't frustrate me with narrow-mindedness.

i was shocked and surprised at how well the guy managed to read me. i don't know how much of his connecting my personality traits to my name really meant, and i don't know how much of his reading me correctly was due to me giving so much away in the debate or just a general understand of the human condition, but it resulted in some very interesting discussions that kept me on my chair until far later than i'd intended.

i've just had a shower and swept the floors (although not mopped, i'm too lazy right now), and i'm about to tackle the c++ work. i've been disregarding it for too long.

re-designer

i had an incredible morning! i woke up far earlier than i wanted to... as usual... but i put it to good use by reading comics and happily playing with my guitar. around an hour or so ago i went back to sleep, a pre-kayak nap if you will, and then something weird happened:
i've been feeling physically well for a couple of weeks now, and i suddenly found myself shivering and slightly off-key again.

this happened immediately after an odd dream that i can't quite recall, but involved the expression "they're all horizontal". i wonder if there's a connection.

the funky green cover i bought yesterday makes such a difference! and i pulled out my old smoking alien print and have draped it over the telly, which looks much better :)

anyway, coffee and kayak, on my way!

out-STANDING driving!

world war iii, coming right up

it doesn't matter that each of us "westerners" knows that our moral code and love of freedom (even if we don't do it quite right) is correct and that it's not sensible for people to believe otherwise... not everyone agrees with us.

we are at war with islam, at war not with every individual practising muslim but at war with a worldview that is completely at odds with ours.
and this is why wars happen. throughout history. when you cannot resolve things in any other way.

at the moment we have not only fanatics and fundamentalists but regular and good people as well subverting our respected and loved democracies by becoming a majority in whichever country allows this to happen. it's happening in europe and it is happening everywhere else.

our moral code is SO good that the only option we have is to let this happen, to let our democracy turn to meaningless drivel and to become incorporated into the muslim world.
the only way to defend ourselves against this is to behave in ways we KNOW are immoral, in ways that we could never condone, but these are the exact attributes of our worldview that we need to protect.

due to the incredible improbability of us doing what we need to in order to preserve our way of life, i can only predict that in a relatively short while i'm going to be wearing a shumag and struggling to pronounce "please don't rape me so much" in arabic.

or

we can figure out a way to unfuck ourselves in our political and moral correctness and do whatever it is that needs to be done. i'm pretentious, but not pretentious enough to think that i hold the solution to all our woes.

i'm just unfortunate enough to be honest enough with myself to be aware of the problem. god help us all, whichever god you choose. otherwise, we won't have the luxury of a choice.

to bed, not to party

today was great! it began at coffeeholic with leary on drugs and good coffee, and proceeded to become breakfast with ze germans on ahad ha'am. breakfast was excellent, and turned into a walk down shenkin, which then became a walk down king george street and scored me a great-big-funky-green-tribal couch cover (more of them to be bought shortly, with awesome cushions that i can't justify not having bought when i saw them).

i got home and realized that my old neighbour was performing nearby, so i hurried back the way i'd come and entered apparently ten minutes into the show. the show was great! i really enjoyed the music, and the beer, and then walked straight back home to shower, watch invader zim - bloaty's pizza hog and go out for dinner.

i gave myself a little too much time, so instead of spending it sitting on the curb, i stopped for coffee and to read a paper. i never read the news, i've mentioned this before, but today's actually had important stuff that was relevant for the conversations that were to follow.

the waiter took a shine to me (story of my life, never the waitresses, hence the t-shirt) and brought me good chocolate on the house when i left :P

dinner was great! two particularly interesting items:

1) apparently the major issue i had with the date i went on at the end of last year is not personal, it's familial. we're a family (i'm including all the extended family too) of talkers, of argumentative and very noisy types. i discovered that i'm not alone with my frustration of talking a lot and not being able to draw the date in.
so a) i don't wanna date quiet girls and b) i'm not going to feel bad when i do

2) huge argument at the table over the ethics of a war against islam. a separate post ensues.

i'm off to sleep because i suddenly remembered that i'm going kayaking in the afternoon :P

survival of the week

wake-up yesterday was a far sight better than wednesday! i didn't even need coffee, let alone the energy drink :) [although i took it with, just in case]

i actually enjoyed working again yesterday, and got a lot done. i even managed to sneak in an hour on a project whose lack of completion has been embittering me for months. in fact, the only downer of the day was coming up against the wall of visual studio 2008's network security management: why can't it just use the user's rights automatically?

i've been focused on a sort of a diet that i'm not quite sticking to. i definitely need to exercise this belly off! at least i can be proud of myself that the two guys i've been doing push-ups and sit-ups with weren't in and i still did mine... usually the lack of external influence brings about the "gym contract effect".

i know that the kinder has received the gooey package, because he sent an sms asking me to thank everyone and letting me know that he hadn't opened it yet. i'm going nuts, i can't wait to hear his response!!

i went to the bank, but the interest rates have dropped to the point where i'd need another 200k to earn .1%. apparently i'm not the only person passing on that one.
i bought a non-slip mat for the shower... and managed to get it right! now not only am i not worried about sliding, but i get a foot massage at the same time :)
i went to buy a spare battery for my cellphone, but they didn't have in stock. so i bought a super-funky orange-spiralled phone cover instead.

my fingers and my guitar are beginning to talk ^_^

i slept for an hour and a half, and the trauma of getting out of bed after midnight more than made up for the morning's ease :/
wr and friends picked me up and we went to a fetish party. the music was excellent - there weren't very many people though, and only about ten actual fetishists... i only caught one "show", which i found to be kinda sad. at least a perfect circle - hollow playing in the background was appropriate.

we missioned off to the party at helga, had a lot of fun and more booze, then went back to the fetish party and walked in to tool - eulogy, for which i was in an absolutely perfect place and mood and mindset - that actually made my night. we left a few songs and a bit of rum later, back to helga where i *think* ptsd finally got the idea that we're not, haven't been and won't be sleeping together.

wr offered the mystery girl a lift home this morning, so i now know her name and the fact that although she looks early-to-mid 20's she actually 36... he's now quite smitten :P

i'm trying to decide how to begin my day... my neck's quite sore from the last few days' action and i'm always too lazy to clean, but it's needed.

stiff-necked throatless

just got back from seeing chris cornell - an absolutely INSANELY great concert! and the crowd was far more fun than yesterday's. my throat's a bit sore and my body's stuffed. the only uncool things were a) chris' mic wasn't set to high enough gain and b) some large, stinky dude invaded my space for about ten minutes. regardless, the people around us were great fun and the vibe in general was excellent!

peeling myself out of bed this morning was powerfully unpleasant - so much so that i have an energy drink in the fridge just to make sure that in five hours' time i'll be alright :S

i napped on the shuttle, i managed to close my eyes for about twenty minutes when i got into my office... and somehow, the rest of the day saw me getting a whole lot done. strange!

i'm done. i'm sure i have something to say but i can't think of anything aside from the two crazy concerts and my bed. hmmm, and calzone on the bus without messing. and increased push-ups. and a refresher course in saving the day in case of attack.

tough crowd

dunno how i did it, but it's now 1am and i gotta be up in four hours and i haven't finished force-feeding myself tuna salad because i've eaten nothing but crap since lunchtime and the dream theatre concert was crazy and rough and really took it out of my legs. for half the concert i had big guys pushing and shoving and then arguing with me about where my elbows were going, the other half was awesome until i realized that some kid was abusing my leg (frotteurism) - he didn't even slow down after i bumped him hard backwards and then turned to stare at him.

freaky.

the music itself was... well, they're just incredible ^_^

those twizzler's nibs are really morish, i polished them off this morning for breakfast... this diet thing's going really well :/
i had a chat with my TL, informing him about the incident with stupiour SC and explaining successfully what i was trying to get across on sunday. i'm still sour about that.

work was fine - especially the bits where i got to discuss things work-related with other people. frikkin' half a year that i haven't actually done anything. and i achieved a big milestone with a personal side-project: i released it for office use and so far the responses have been positive :)

nystire's had us doing five minutes a day of physical exercise for the last few, and it seems to be helping!

on the shuttle home i slept like a baby, but when i woke my dream slipped away and i felt that i was grasping at wisps of its fragments and they were slipping through the cracks in my mind.

related: apparently while sleeping so peacefully in the car i was muttering complaints about the restaurant.

the call

highlight of the day:
...maybe even of the year:
pushing the envelope containing my paper and my undergraduate transcripts into the graduate advisor's mailbox. i cannot express how much pleasure that gave me!
the sunset supported the sensation that at that moment all was right with the world :)

low-points of the day:
a) the section idiot, both in the morning with his completely warped and fantastic understanding of our political situation and his general lack of culture that was demonstrated in the evening
b) i got "The Call" today. or one of them. in another week i'm gonna go have a nice, friendly chat with someone who informed me on the phone that "most importantly, we want you to be satisfied".

i don't think we have the same idea of what will bring me satisfaction.

i went with nystire and his wife to jerusalem tonight, to see the "city of light" display. there were lots and lots and LOTS of people... but they were all bleeding miserable. there was one interesting item, a model of one of da vinci's works, but everything else was boring and uninspired.
for this we pissed away five hours?!
also, we went to a restaurant near the old city enthusiastically recommended by nystire's TL. the service was sub-par (which is embarrassing by anyone's standards), the decor was... bland and disconnected (bull-fighting paintings? in an italian restaurant?), and the food, while apparently quite good (i didn't eat), was stupidly expensive.

and here i find myself very, very happy with all the places i frequent in tel aviv, where the service is good, the atmosphere great, the food wonderful, and the prices very reasonable. i don't get "restaurants" in this country. waste of time... and one misses the wildlife!

the drive back was wonderful, though - i can't recall sleeping that well, and i even had a half a packet of twizzler's nibs to get me on my way. smooth roads, excellent suspension and the quiet droning of the engine behind my very comfortable seat...

back to the day's blah-blah:
1. bubbles! in the office! my team-mate brought them in without any provocation from me :)

2. my SC reported to our unit commander, and i don't know what he said but it definitely made me come out as an asshole. bastard sod.

3a. some woman in jerusalem walked past, and called me "constable". i was offended.
3b. we walked past the place in jerusalem where i first got my ear pierced... and i was reminded of the next day at the western wall when our rabbi noticed and i was forced to remove it on pain of being sent back to south africa...

4. i handed the shuttle guys my exemption, which seems to have upset them. when the shuttle didn't arrive and a couple of us left, their parting words were less than friendly. i think my emails may just have had an effect.

5. another unit lecture on sexual harrassment.
5a. apparently there's a minimum amount of sexual harrassment that needs to occur.
5b. the woman opens her speech with "so many people! i feel like madonna!" - i really wanted to jump up and ask "have you produced a pornographic picture book of yourself too?"
5c. something she said reminded me of my 10th grade english teacher. she came to class with a cold sore on her lip, and that night when i went home i hit the internet to find out about it. the next day in class someone mentioned it, and i raised my hand:
"did you know that genital herpes can be transmitted via oral sex?"
her response? standing up and angrily screaming "YOU GO AND TELL MY FOUR YEAR-OLD SON THAT I GOT THIS FROM GIVING HIS DADDY A BLOWJOB!" - the rest of the class was just as stunned as i was.
she never spoke to me again. a pity, she was my favourite teacher :(

and not-so-blah-blah:
1. SxS called, and aside from the pleasant catching up he informed me of an extremely distressing story. to summarize: a couple of friends in one situation have been pushing another of our friends who's in a VERY different situation to act the way they would, and it's completely inappropriate and unfair.

2. i just got back from mmf's birthday bash - it was great seeing them again! and if everything goes well i might even be studying with his wife next year ^_^
he is very uncomfortable with the shirt i made on friday. i explained that in almost every respect except sexual preference, i'm totally gay :P

3. i just read about the ponzi scheme my cousin got taken for a ride by... very unpleasant news.

yay! less than three hours of sleep... and dream theatre in the evening!

*WHEW*

actually, i'm gonna be worried about it until i get a response. aside from the fact that i'm going to be sending ten pages with an apology note for it being over (and praying that it won't be returned with "TLDR" scrawled in red - cutting it down will hurt), i'm *really* thrilled with the fact that it's come out reasonably well and it's not bullshit.

a week and a day from the request, and five since arriving at a topic. i need a rest, but i could do with another topic :)
now how the hell am i going to send it to the advisor? snail-mail? on foot?

i forwarded the idiot nco's mail to the head of my unit today explaining that we've given up and that the problem runs deeper than mere disorganization. i promised to make every effort to find alternative means of transport. i'm wondering if the nco will understand to be embarrassed by this...

i confronted our SC with a very simple statement today: "i'm not happy here". this was after being informed by a few section members that they're not interested in being friends or in enjoying coming to work.
i don't get it.

i spent half an hour verbally sparring with the wanker, he kept contradicting himself, missing the point, and trying to word his way out of whatever we were discussing. he then had the audacity to call me "unstable". i didn't have the audacity to call him a bunch of things that popped into my head at that moment. they weren't particularly elegant.

i *am* glad that my mum phoned me immediately afterwards. she was concerned about something that the book i'm reading addresses really well (james hillman - re-visioning psychology, i'm not pushing!).
anyway, it's always nice to talk to her, a reminder that i'm not completely off the rails :)

i had some satisfaction at work, and didn't actually mind staying late to get a ride to the bus. i'm always deriding those who run for buses, but i did so myself today and made it in time to save a solid half-hour in the sweltering heat... maybe i'll stop being so preachy about that.

or not, i'm apparently always preachy :P

i put on my blades and swung down the road to sell off an old phone (for the rather symbolic amount of NIS 20, nothing else has attracted callers) but the guy wasn't really keen. i guess it does count as a bit of exercise, which i quite need. i'm still hurting from my niece calling me pregnant :/

i've spent the entire evening sitting in front of my computer, learning and debating with ru55's fiancée, and am about to pass out.

my mother called me WHAT?!

a dofgat, not a very nice word. i just walked out of a *phenomenal* performance - yael deckelbaum and her band were absolutely fantastic - to hear from ru55's fiancée that i was supposed to double-space the work... so i've been stressing for a week and produced double what i needed.

my take? i'm ecstatic! i can't believe i managed to produce that much, and to think it took me three days just to decide what to write on! ^_^

so now for round 2, but first i need to shower. the only bad news for the evening is that i have to take the shuttle again tomorrow. i hate my base.

i really, really enjoyed the sunset this evening. it was really pretty.

a bit embarrassed

mostly because i have neither been outside, nor done much actual work since i last posted. not counting the first fix: it has been brought to my attention that i managed to miss the whole romanticism vs industrial revolution thing. it didn't change a lot of text, but it did change a lot of meaning. and here i was all focused on the renaissance when i should've been staring at the enlightenment.

i've learned a lot this week!

drugs? bad? science? also bad??

i'm going for a walk.

don't drink and ride

not in the park, at least - those little tykes are bloody dangerous!

i left when the tree whose shade i was taking advantage of relieved itself of berries on me, staining a page of my pretty new book with juice splashes :(

my word - leary on drugs is simply wonderful! i stopped at coffeeholic on the way back to finish the chapter, and then came home to remove my blades and hop into a very cold shower :)

my work so far feels... crap. i'm deeply unsatisfied. i'm now waiting upon some sage advice, because i can't point my finger at which bits unsettle me nor how i should deal with those that i can identify.

on a completely different note: i turned my bed sideways this morning.

a cute girl i met last week removed me as a facebook friend this morning. that's not the weird bit. the weird bit is that she sent me a message apologizing for doing it. she claims that she's been asked to disconnected from our group of friends... i can't tell if that's a line or not. either way, it was enough to make me raise an eyebrow and go "huh?!"

erik von brunn responds

ready to start again

i didn't go partying last night. i read keats - fall of hyperion until late - it's absolutely brilliant and i'm ashamed that i'd never looked at it before.

i'm shocked at the responses that i've received from friends regarding my t-shirt. i don't know why it's such a big deal, especially seeing as these are people who know me, and i can only conclude that their anti-gay sentiments are strong. and that their senses of humour are failing.

i have seen wonders this morning:
water-jet: sweet as!
card magic: shape of my heart sing-a-long, this dude is awesome
here's what i don't get about hip-hop: it used to be fun, hip, interesting. it had funky beats and things to say. turn back the clock!

and am now going to continue working.

not particularly proud of my sexual preference

a short nap, a little more work, and then off to the gay pride parade.

this year's was insane. so many people! and lots loved the shirt i had made on my way there:
"if i could choose i'd be gay", and on the back "(but i can't)"

actually, the shirt was a pick-up point for a cute girl who joined us (my ex-team-mate was with me) - in retrospect, i don't know why i didn't give her my number. she does live in the neighbourhood, though, so maybe i'll see her again.

i came back to work - to shop, to eat, to take five... but i've actually made quite a bit of headway. i'm not happy with what i've produced, but it's not awful and that means i'm ready to begin getting advice :P

i drank the coffee...

... and passed out anyway. then i woke up to have the safe installed. yay! i have a place for my papers! and just in case i'm burgled, i'm leaving the key in the lock - i don't want anyone mistakenly thinking there are valuables in it :P

i shipped off the surprise package at the post-office, and was pleasantly surprised to receive the amazon package that i thought was only going to arrive next month: the wit & wisdom of discworld is stunning, but that's not where i started.

i started with leary on drugs over a beef parisian breakfast, and it is absolutely BRILLIANT!

now to get back to work. or nap first. shit, i dunno.

dumping

the highlight of the workday: with military precision, we produced a video of the culmination of this week's disgusting jelly project. we shopped - a *very* expensive shopping, everyone contributed - and collected all the letters for the kinder, placing them strategically in the small cardboard box.
then we:
a) filled the box with oozing chocolate-coffee jelly
b) sealed the box
c) wrapped it in plastic
d) inserted it into a prepared larger cardboard box, packed with brownies, cups, and various bits to keep the inner box stable
e) sealed the outer box

all within a few well-calculated seconds. we couldn't send it, unfortunately... so it's now sitting in the entrance to my apartment, and i'll have to deliver it tomorrow. i went to buy duct-tape from the hardware store, and was informed that the hardware dude's missioning to a good party tomorrow and i might be able to join him :)

as for the rest of the day:
about two hours devoted to a very serious celebratory lunch for a project i had nothing to do with, another two for playing with the ASCII tool i made (and then using it), and the rest was spent on a milestone achievement: i have actually done something (albeit small) for the first time in half a year. fantastic!

i'm almost embarrassed at the sense of achievement.

speaking of failures, nystire tried a mentos / ice experiment that went nowhere.

we had a brainstorming session this morning, one that involves sneaky tricks on september the 19th. we're uncovering ways to perform social engineering on our commanders.

the lowlight of the workday: one of the shuttle morons proved his inability to read and comprehend today. we claimed that it's irrational to require an officer in the permanent force to take time out of his academic studies in order to be in charge of security... this can only happen because the guarding schedules are designated weekly instead of daily. THREE nco's, and they don't have the brainpower to organize a daily roster.

the response? "the shuttle is not a service for students to get to the university". in addition, the rude bastard now wants me to prove that i can't guard. with frikkin' pleasure.

i immediately fired off a mail to my TL, to thank him for his suggestion to use a specific example instead of sticking with generalizations like i'd intended to: "it's like warning someone to be careful of a cup filled with hot water, only to watch him pick up the kettle and pour its boiling contents all over himself because you didn't mention it specifically".

speaking of reading and comprehending: i've managed to produce two pages (out of five)... but this is tough. i'm going to be really upset if my peer-review team doesn't like it :/

at least my guitar fiddling is improving, and i have a couple of sounds going that sound like they're intentional ^_^

another too-early

i actually wrote some stuff last night! it's a start :D

i went with the mongoose to the book fair, and we ran into a couple of friends in time to sit with them over magic burger dinners. we then came back to my place to not work on the sign for my door, instead watching invader zim - having the box set rules :)

waking up just hurt me again. last day of the week!

extreme heat

and dust. it was a hot, sticky day - but in the middle of it a sandstorm came up while i was outside and travelling back to my office.

waking up this morning was terrible, but once it was done and i'd made it to base i was actually okay! i even got some work done!

aside from the 4+ hours spent travelling to see the doctor (gotta have a bump removed, i've decided to do that after the dream theatre and chris cornell concerts), i threw the day towards a cute yet very necessary ASCII translator.

parsing in c# is frustrating.

i've just finished reading john keats - hyperion, and have just begun fall of hyperion. slow going, although i can only blame myself because i made more jelly (it set while still warm!) and i keep trying to strum the guitar while reading so that my fingers can get used to the F chord.
i hope it's worth my while because i'm feeling pressured - and the mongoose is coming over in a couple of hours so there's not much night left.

cooling down

that was an AWESOME run - i'm just cooling off before hitting the shower and then the hay. i have no clue how many klicks we did, but a lot of it was smooth and very downhill ^_^

also, i spent most of it with one of the guys from the first leg of last year's course, and it was great to catch up :)

with a guiness to finish, and i think i know what i'm going to write my paper on. my gaze alighted on a couple of particularly interesting verses a couple of minutes before i left to join the group, and i'm fairly certain that i have what it takes :D

only waking up at 5.30am is going to suck. the good news is that i get there, and then an hour or so later i come back to tel aviv for a doctor's appointment. genius! timing couldn't have been better ^_^

thumbs up and down

nobody likes the jelly. it's considered a resounding success and too close to its intended mark. as fate would have it: the box we found is labelled 6 packages x 6 cups, so all we have to do is replace "package" with "girl" and reference the number 0 :)

today was smoother than yesterday, although i was - and still am - really tired. i got work done, i was frustrated by .net's file permission handling (i'm not even wasting a second on that this evening), i began organizing another section breakfast (i hope it'll happen this time, my co-workers are really uncooperative), had my teeth cleaned, and ate a very small lunch which didn't hurt me too much.
and nystire even got us doing push-ups and sit-ups for five minutes.

since i've been home i've been browsing lots of mythology and reading keats, i've paid what appears to be the final bill from the old apartment, and i've made interesting noises with the guitar.

i'm carrying on with the research, then going rollerblading and boozing.

sunshine jelly

backwards post! i'm tired, haven't showered yet, and haven't made much progress with the paper. i keep leading myself down dead-ends and i keep getting side-tracked. this isn't good.

i just made jelly. no, really. jelly. only i made it with ground coffee and hot chocolate powder. it smells wonderful. it looks awful. it's destined to gross out the kinder when he receives a package with it smeared all over.

i just saw sunshine on my way home, stopped for two words and carried on. i saw a graph that says that the most sure-fire way to get the girl is to ignore her. i have a feeling that's not entirely accurate.

on the way home: i suffered from a sore stomach on a packed bus, while re-reading hyperion*, scribbling notes, answering both phones simultaneously while listening to groovy trance.
at least the trance was groovy :)
a really cute girl who reminded me of mpe sat down opposite me and sent me a few smiles, but i gotta be honest i'm now / still overly cautious :P

i had coffee with sammy when i went there to grab some of his books, his kids are really cute and i hadn't seen his wife in years... i unfortunately didn't have time to stay (over three hours of travelling to get to his place and back by bus).

on the bus there i took the helm of ars control - they were playing their crap music really loudly and everyone was too afraid to say something. i think i made myself some new friends :P
i'd taken the wrong bus from tel aviv, so i had to switch lines in ra'anana :(
i re-read lady of mazes on the way, it's an incredible look at human interfacing with reality. it ties in nicely with terry pratchett's explanation of how we lie to ourselves in the science of discworld ii: the globe.

i bought a ticket to see chris cornell! i didn't know until this afternoon that he's performing next week already :P
i then bought another one for the guy who informed me, he was certain they were sold out. on the way i got stuck on a fenced pavement behind a lady with a pram and a kid on a bicycle. i told the kid to get off the bike to let us through, and the lady got upset because she thought i was telling her to hurry up. oh, dear.

i took the train home with the goto guy, which was more comfortable than the shuttle and arrived at around the same time.

i closed my loan account with the army today! that felt good. take-away humus is way better than the regular sit-down meal, and the lunch chat revolved around snowboarding which is always nice :)

c++ project progression: i've explained to the guy that he's doing me a favour by letting me use my brain for once. nystire and i have been discussing the fact that i should be participating in open-source projects to keep active and interested, but without a personal excuse i've had no motivation to do so.

treachery! the work that's been irritating me the last few days with it's incompleteness? i've been feeling bad about cutting down someone else's hard work, only to discover this morning that the bastard copied it in its entirety from somewhere else - which explains why i have so much changing to do :/

i tweaked the section's virtual magic eightball today, it's looking good and running smoothly. that was a fun little distraction.

weight watching: my belly needs reducing
shoe shining: we were warned to be extra-specially presentable today, for no reason. of course, i brought out my "special occasion" pants and somehow got white paint on them...
sensitive tooth: the new filling, gonna have to complain :(

* i've decided it's a better bet than the magic pudding... and i suffered last night chrononhotonthologos, "the most tragical tragedy that ever was tragedized". this is a more appropriate tagline than it should be

nde

nde
i stab a pencil through the back of my neck
and pull it out the front
the whistle and whine of the breeze winding through
echoing calamity of my voiceless grunt

tears could fall, but void of heart
evaporate
too rapidly to drown me
that shake, that flail of the shock to my brain
far too insincere
to save me

but easily brings me to my knees

my vision spins, my panic consumes me
but i know that this
is not really real

for i -
i -
i can never die