after not sleeping last night...

... primarily due to sore legs (body still aching, especially neck, surprise), i woke up super early and headed straight for the wrong base. [on purpose]

hah! i was awol today, and nobody noticed. well, my previous BC informed my current SC who doesn't really have anything to do with me anyway. i wasn't released today, rather entered into permanent force - theoretically this makes me a completely displaced jobless soldier with an increased salary that's still considerably lower than that from the job i just quit.

the satisfying bit of the day was the mongoose calling up that cow's superior and telling her to crap on the foolish girl for being unpleasant to me ^_^

and i spent some time with a girl who's really helping me out of the current mess and doing it with a smile. and it's nice to hear that my now previous commanders are well appreciated by everyone they've been in touch with regarding me, because they're really deserving.

oh, yes. it rained a LOT today. i took some abuse from the kid about not being man enough to leave my brolly behind, but i've been more-or-less dry and he's guarding tonight.

after coffee with nystire and his fiancée, i went to work to inform nql that i'm officially forbidden from working as a civilian. i cleaned out my desk, and came home to eat the rather decent ghoulash spot's been raving about, catch up online, fiddle with the guitar, and now shower and get some rest.

my life's upside down and it's all beginning to make a very strange sort of sense. i must be an NCO.

scientology rules in court, apparently
zune?
musical truism

gaming:
frikkin' cool, miss!
smart lawyers?!?!
not a smart lawyer at all - /. comments a must!
real gaming (or, an accident waiting to happen)

eco time:
last showing
another wish i'd thought of it!
damn right
and back to twiggy (but he's right)

11:59:00:01

i don't have time right now to really describe what happened today, and how it brings closure to the last month of my nightmare. it was a really long day, a really unpleasant day, and almost literally at the last minute i got a phone call telling me to cancel the vacation.

so i suffered some abuse on the induction base [the mongoose will be dealing with that], been to training, had an unpleasant ending of relations with sunshine, and i've been out tonight for the opening of ta2's new club - now it's time for a couple of hours' shuteye and then i get promoted in the morning.

i think. it's all terribly confusing. i walked into my now previous office this afternoon and all i had to say was "i've got nowhere else to go!" :S

STOP THE CLOCK!!

just after 16.30 i was finally informed that i've been given leave... it'll take effect tomorrow afternoon if i manage to sort my shit out, and once taken will leave me with one single day of mandatory service left - that's cutting it seriously close. "tight" had this in mind, it feels like something out of a movie.

so today was highly stressed. at some point i thought "sod it" and had a cigarette, and sat quietly being mildly stoned for a short while, before getting back to my combination of spider solitaire and trying to keep my shit together.

then i walked into work, and my boss was around for the first time in a couple of weeks. the first sentence out of my mouth after "hi" was "i'm outta here".

granted, i said it a little more politely than that, but basically i've quit and i'll be closing shop and helping out here and there until they can properly do without me. i had a chat with the boss about the current situation and all the things i've been complaining about, but he's not really interested in what i have to say.

nystire arrived to pick up his biltong, and we went out for tortillas.

i cleared out my virtual desk, and here's what i had to save:
From: nql
Sent: Thursday, February 01, 2007 1:01 PM
Subject: object oriented lesson


// create an object;
$sf = new SFFX;
// set the parameters
$sf->set_post($_POST); // pass the form variables + validation
$sf->set_act($arg); // pass the values that we got back from ACT +
validation
$sf->set_cookie($cookie); // pass the user's cookie preprocessed in an
array
+ validation
// do the action
$success = $sf->create(); // check wether post, cookie were called
(="validation"), just do the stuff
// continue accordingly
if ($success) {
do something with $fs->record_id...
}
else {
do something with $sf->error...
}
// This is what I call object oriented, "Mr DoItAllInOneFunction"

SEP Field: SET.

so tomorrow's gonna start with a lecture on stress-management: well-deserved, i haven't been dealing with mine correctly. in related news, i just had a freak-out because after finishing this post, i managed to press a key combination that told firefox to drop my current window and pressed OK, and i don't know how.

boy, have i thanked the googles for the recovery function.

the tepid housewarming

my day today began with a hysterical conversation with wooz the ghoul barman that resulted in my being on the receiving end of a serious thumping. it was a mission in itself to tear myself away from the game in order to get the cleaning started.

cleaning took four hours, and included everything. in the end we had only about 10 visitors, with spot leaving halfway through to go to magist's housewarming.

a few of us went with our TL to play some pool, and i saw the angelic waitress for the first time in months... the pool we played wasn't serious, but i did have a bit of fun.

now it's definitely bedtime.

drool day

aside from shopping this morning (fine, early afternoon), all i've done today is play fallout 2. i'd be in shit if it wasn't for quick-saving, because the last couple of hours have seen me randomly judging and executing several small towns. while i'm trying to play through the missions.

although i'm extremely happy with my character: heroic luck and 100% on gambling. the rest is pretty much average.

hah! not one cigarette the entire day.

the colour of self-worth

last night the kid came home most pleased with himself: he's learned all we've tried to teach him about doing things properly the first time, and he's just gotten extremely positive results for his first serious attempt in the real world :)

i went over some c# material before going to bed, and it all came back to me (with interest, i've properly forgotten some things).

this morning i phoned to harrass the people responsible for my vacation authorization, and i think that the girl i spoke to understood my problem, because this afternoon she reported back that it should be handled on sunday. that's not a guarantee, but at least come sunday i'll know who to bother.

speaking of bother, the mongoose helped me out with a really nice print of winnie the pooh for my welfare officers :P

the interview:

pleasant. interesting. it sounds like a job i'd enjoy and learn from. didn't bat an eyelid when i stated my minimum salary (three times what i'm currently surviving on), which i think indicates that i should begin checking out the current average and raise my sights a little.

after my last interview, i promised myself that i would prepare a system i've previously designed in the event that i get asked again. i was asked again, but not having fulfilled that promise i got stuck.

so the interviewer pulled out a question, which just happened to require an algorithm almost identical to the one brother bear and i worked on a couple of months ago - i had an immediate O(n) answer on hand, no thinking required ^_^

they want me immediately, but i'd apologized about my unavailability from the start... if i do need the job, then i hope nobody fills the position before i get there ;) [having my cake and eating it]

i have to be honest, that was a good ego-boost. i experienced an increased appetite in spite of the aweful food, and playing inter-branch pictionary afterwards made the day complete :D

my mother made an interesting point in her last email: if i'm going to study again, why not in canada?

i'm going out for a smoke, then i'll come back inside for some more work-hating, and then the weekend begins. i'm 100% focused on sleep potential.

pretty winners - odd interface, click symbol to access?!
highly amusing - i love americans

when you know your mommy's right

to: tipsfortrevor@treasury.gov.za
subject: Budget 2007

Dear Sir,

I believe that there should be no additional tax relief for companies or for individuals earning more than R 600,000.00 per annum.

The money that is 'saved' by not cutting taxes for those at the top end of the earnings ladder should be used for staffing our essential institutions.

It is essential that nurses, teachers, other health professionals, policemen and prison warders and prosecutors, all the people that make this country work, are better trained and better paid so that they are motivated to stay in these essential services. Nurse and teacher training colleges should be re-opened while we still have qualified people to man them, and if the qualified educators are white, so be it.

Prisoners should be made to work to contribute towards their keep so that less of the budget is needed for Correctional Services especially as we do need more prisons, run more efficiently, as the crime rate spirals.

The affirmative action that has cost us skills has the most expensive part of our new dispensation. If the skills are available, it is silly to appoint people on the basis of colour/gender. We need to get past that. Our country needs to employ the best to get the best for everyone, and service delivery will improve immediately.

i wish i could believe that trevor would take her seriously.

overproduction = unproductive

i can feel my brain tearing at the seams. i've had a long week, and now that it's over everything's come rushing up to the front to crowd all the functional bits. as if it wasn't bad enough that i had to deal with serious brain-rape from nql's lack of communication skills, i've just been introduced to a new level of bad design that wasn't apparent from the start, and i haven't a freaking clue how to go about working around it.

and i don't want to.

i'm sick of this shit.

i don't mind php, web-development, grud-work... i don't like it, but i can deal with it. i mind having to be stupider than i'm already feeling so that i can blindy write things in the manner that i *hope* is correct. correct for the existing environment, of course.
design wasn't considered in these systems, and i think that the monkey who continued without understanding what was required for the company confused all the entities - and the users - and the providers - and me. it really does pay to employ somebody who doesn't need a beating with a cluestick to perform basic system analysis, and it really does pay to find someone who actually has an idea how the business itself needs to operate.

not only that, but if they'd had a decent design they would have known from the start what they required from the providers: i'm thinking that maybe this company should start over.

it pays to begin on the right foot. an idiot off the starting block will fuck you right up.

irresistable photo

click to view actual size

the sign says "no parking / stopping" for the entire area, the list below includes bicycles. some idiot chained his bike to the sculpture itself.

now i just need to learn how to use the camera.

camera manual: TLDR

now that i've unsuccessfully tried to take an interesting photo at night and with the focus on what's BEHIND the sign (i'll post it later), i understand that i really do need to know what all the items on the dial mean :/

today began better. my home pc's just about ready to have things installed on it - although i must thank google that office is no longer on the list of required software ^_^

today i finally "got" one of the 3D images in the book on my SC's desk. i had it for about a minute, comfortably able to blink and move my eyes about, but when i tried for another image my eyes just said "fat chance". that was during a long, boring team meeting of which i was merely an observer. i didn't have anything better to do.

the kid hasn't dealt with his piles, and either way my dealings with piles have been strained to say the least. i can't pretend to be friendly with somebody whose presence invokes extreme contempt.

work: omfg nql gives me a headache. he spent half an hour explaining to me that php classes shouldn't demonstrate any level of encapsulation because php developers like to access everything directly. and he takes any argument as personal, because apparently admitting that you've done something wrong is shameful and humiliating.

the dude has no concept of teamwork, of doing things for the benefit of the company, or of doing things correctly, and i'm finding it harder and harder to keep my cool. i'd at least appreciate an attempt at some level of professionalism.

i've spent hours doing grudwork, mostly double-checking things with him to make sure that they meet with his approval, and thank **** i'm going home soon.

my mom contacted me earlier to inform me that her move to her new apartment has gone sour, and she's staying with tgtbt's mother tonight... i understand why i go through all that shit, but to hear that my mom's dealing with it too really sucks.

i just remembered that i have a job interview tomorrow morning. i'd enjoy it a lot more if i had some idea of how relevant it is, because the length of the rest of my service is still anyone's guess :(

role-model
my response to nystire after reading this: yes. i think i'd be more annoyed that my girlfriend didn't find me as entertaining as something... more furry.

right in two

i left my brolly in the office yesterday, and this morning i got caught in a downpour as i left the apartment. i'd left a bit later than i should have, as i was occupied with the consumption of a rather tasty (and healthy) muesli-melon:



piles has not improved, in fact he's gotten worse. our TL heard some of the fighting and has told me he'll see about fixing the situation. the kid just doesn't want any of it, and by not acting he's not doing himself any favours, and piles is a complete turd.

thai lunch of super-spicy buffalo wings was great.

i spent a lot of the day with our welfare officers, after my SC finally conceeded that the vacation is a good idea and our BC signed the papers. unfortunately a vacation of this nature can take a week to process, which is a week too long - this means that there'll be more harrassing to be done.

and the bastards refuse to accept faxes, so the poor girls had to mission off to the induction base (i couldn't go in their stead) in the pouring rain on my account :(

thing is, i'm glad that my commanders have finally understood that it's the right thing to do, but at the same time i feel shitty that my SC has had to give in: the last thing i want is for him to think i've lost faith, when it's not faith in him that's missing.

i finally got around to compiling a test web-service, and we would have deployed it if it wasn't for that niggling little detail concerning the existence of a server to deploy to. i also spent a while figuring out that something our TL has requested isn't feasible.

i spoke to my taekwondo instructor: i'll be resuming training either this friday or next monday. and quitting smoking, probably this weekend. i've been saying it for over two years, and i'm bloody well doing it.

back at work: i've discovered that our cute french graphic designer has a blog, but it's in french. kinda hard to decode, that. but i learned to add d'lait to nuage :P

i'm done with my side of the project, but it's now up to me to integrate. i find it hard to concentrate when the class and variable names reference costumers. fancy-dress foreign exchange, anyone?

---- later ----

spot, the kid and i sat chatting at cafeneto, and i've come to the conclusion that the kid should write up a formal complaint against piles and serve it tomorrow. piles has gone against no less than five of the primary directives of the army: trustworthiness, responsibility, professionalism, discipline and fellowship. that's what you get after learning all of the directives by heart. i think confinement to base and / or jailtime would be good for him.

myself experiencing a rare moment of happiness

colour shuffling
styling!
educational!
wow. i feel safer already :S

the bull

i spent my entire army day stressing, going head to head with my SC and losing, and then watching him moving mountains with a teaspoon. the man is seriously stubborn, and refused to allow me to sign off the month. as much as i trust him and respect his abilities (he talks softly and carries a fuck-off big morning-star), i don't have faith in the rest of the involved parties so i can't relax.

work tonight was a pleasure - nql showed me how to get around the fact that php's class model is the worst implementation i've ever come across. EVERYTHING has to be self-referenced, no matter the damn scope. twits, whoever thought up that one.

spot's got five black adder seasons on dvd, so i've been familiarizing myself. it's alright, i actually snickered a bit during the second episode.

electro-art
pc / mac
could this news calm the rabid horde?
s'not exactly fair...
a big waste of tech

i can't stop myself from blaming one particular person for the mess my life's been since i got back from south africa: there's a single girl responsible for my current shite, who i'd specifically told to get in touch with me if there was anything wrong. not letting us know really made it all go pear-shaped.

less than six days to go :'(

pretty purple

earlier, i managed to tip a half-filled 1.5l bottle of water so that it landed cap down onto the middle toe of my right foot. my toe's not broken, but it's definitely making its discomfort known and the nail has turned a bright purple.

you know, there's never a good time for that to happen.

lunch!

it's really great to step into a public bathroom and be greeted by someone else's lunch festering in the hand-basin. lovely. and the cleaners have gone for the night.

today was a big and frustrating day: it took all day for my SC to finally understand that my solution to the problem really is the only one. that's another day down :'(

the civilian i chatted with the other evening was given a farewell ceremony this morning, and i actually managed to get it together to say a few words... they came out right, amused as they were intended to, and i spoke in hebrew - colour me self-satisfied!

speaking of self-satisfied, i had to fill out a form for my release stating how i see myself professionally and socially. that's a horrible thing to make me do. i know what i'd like to see on my report, i know how i feel about what i've done, and i also know how my perspective doesn't count for shit.
of course i think i'm amazing - but i don't feel comfortable writing it on a permanent record. i tried to be fair and objective, and that felt shitty because it's for a permanent record.
swak.

we finally invited people over for housewarming: we managed to cut the list down to about 50 or so. saturday night will prove interesting :S

it's now time to get back to work - i seem to have gotten a handle on the subject, but it's a tad difficult to concentrate with all this army crap going through my head.

screening

great party! i definitely needed to let some aggression out. quite a few friends were there, too, and some very spankily-dressed cardboard boxes ;) [i suppose something rhyming with vixen would've been more appropriate :P]

ta2, wr and i went out for a rather good breakfast, and around 8am i returned home and crashed until 3pm ^_^
i enjoyed a great muesli breakfast, a pleasant chat with spot at cafeneto^*1, and afterwards watched stanley kubrick's lolita (finally), which was really good. and wasting an hour back-seat driving the kid's game of heroes was fun, too.

bedtime! tomorrow will make all the difference, i just hope it's in a good way.

^*1 i still feel the same way about sunshine, but i've decided i'm not chasing after her, just hoping things'll somehow work out. i don't want to be "that annoying guy".

couch comforting

i have to say it: this vacation idea has relaxed me no end! and i don't even know if it's possible... but i'm extremely proud of myself for having thought of it.

i've just gone through all the news and am on my way to scream and jump up and down until i drag my feet back home in the morning.

a lot of these posts are amusing, but this one is poetic!

i got home relatively early last night, studied some math and fell asleep watching bad boys. this morning the kid and i had really good bacon and eggs for breakfast, then went out shopping. i napped in the afternoon, until spot woke me up for coffee and a viewing of lolita: i still haven't seen the movie, because the kid walked in after about ten minutes and we switched to alien³.

we watched a bit of the bonus materials, then one of the kid's friends came over and we spent ages moving the aerial cable around to find a signal. i'm so proud we're so disconnected from television!

power of speech

but first, some linkage:
new ice age theory triumphs
nystire suggests we enter spot dressed in tinfoil
i love slashdotters
no really, i do
and transformers
the pope says we're going to hell
awwwwww [the video. the video!]

so today started off with lots of meetings about my future in the armed forces (another direct translation from the hebrew [כוחות מזויינים / kochot mezuyanim] is the fucked forces, but nevermind). halfway through i had a sudden burst of inspiration / genius: i can bloody well take a vacation!

the kid, piles and i took off to the firing range. from the moment before getting on the bus, piles was wildly flapping his gums in a most offensive manner, and i just saw red. and not just that of his gullet.
no, as usual i didn't resort to physical violence, but months of aggravation just came out and i really ripped into him. the argument (alright, my stream of verbal abuse) continued until halfway through lunch, when i managed to calm down slightly and figured out a way to get something positive out of it all.

but i did *want* to beat the shit out of him.

our range-time flew by. the three of us are seconded, so technically we belong to that base: some poor artillery sod actually admitted to not serving there when asked, and they threw him out. hee hee.

i spent the afternoon helping out the mongoose and figuring things out with my TL and our welfare officers (damn, but the new girl's foxy - and only eight years younger than me).

-- tool - right in two has caused this posting to be paused for a couple of minutes --

i got a call-back from a guy looking to hire c# developers for a big statistics and data-mining company... i handled the conversation exceptionally well (it's nice to be interviewed when you have a job and you're not under pressure), and it gave me just the edge i needed when sunshine called two minutes later.

granted, it was to cancel our date for tonight, but i'm very proud of how i handled the conversation.

i had a long and interesting chat with one of our civilians on my way out, then came to work and sat with nql on the php project for an hour or so. it seems like i'm well on my way to finishing under time (granted, i haven't actually done much work tonight), and nobody touched my pc so it was ready for testing when i got in.

i'm not really surprised that i understand what's going on - it's not brain surgery (or rocket science, thanks nystire) - but i do have that oft-misplaced feeling of achievement. and the feeling that i'm typing too fast for my wrists to keep up.
*massages wrists*

my stress levels will drop considerably if i can wrangle permission to take a vacation right now. pray for me!

hard-working lazies

fantastic what effort some people are willing to put in to get out of doing something productive. of course all the php developers didn't experience problems with the api's i'm wrapping. they don't know about this "reading documentation" thing - they know about piecing together objects from var_dumping them.

brilliant. genius. i wonder if they generally hit the bottle before working...

i don't think anything interesting / good happened this morning. i did open my calculus book, and that's been keeping me entertained in short bursts.

lunch was awesome - our team went out and we stuffed ourselves on really good food. i don't know what a pundak is.

i slept well on the way back to base, and after a few minutes napping on my desk, i woke up and got productive. i ate on base on the way to work, had a far easier conversation with the bus girl from yesterday (i began by lying through my teeth, and it worked), and walked in to a meeting with our manager. he's chilling with me, if not with the situation.

nql helped me (using the above technique) to solve last night's riddle, and i spent the night playing and tweaking and learning all sorts of cute php tricks. the system itself is kinda annoying, but i'm not stressing if i'm not supposed to know what the hell i'm doing.

as i got on the bus, i heard the bus driver telling the guy sitting next to him that he'd been hesitating about stopping for me. fucker.

i walked home, put in my alice in chains - unplugged dvd, and got through more calculus. now i'm ready for bed, and the last day of a frustrating and stressful week.

chief crazy work-horse

the kid and i just got back from cafeneto - extremely therapeutic. things with sunshine seem alright, and the kid participates when i let off steam... he's like a good therapist :P

today started off dodgy - the anguish begun the day before hasn't abated, and until a couple of hours ago things have just been snowballing (as in getting bigger and bigger, not as in clerks).

it was a mission to get piles to help me take the plastic bottles to the recycling bin this morning. once we were done, i specifically told him - twice to make sure - NOT to throw away the packet. the kid and i were laughing now about the stupid, completely uncomprehending look he gives. halfway back to the office i registered that he wasn't carrying anything.
"what the $#@! did you do with the packet?"
he looks at me totally innocently: "i threw it away. why do you ask?"

most of what i recall from my army day (due to some memory-suppression) is playing spider solitaire. i started the day watching demo videos of ruby on rails with brother bear - friggin' insane, the things they do. it's impressive as hell, and i hope i don't find an excuse to have to use it (i don't do web dev. even when i do, i don't).

in the afternoon, i managed to catch our branch officer earlier than i'd expected. we sat organizing, but there was yet another screw-up on the receiving end and it's out of our control as usual. this is all very frustrating, as i write this i have exactly 1 week and 6 days to go before my release. this is a another tense period of my life.

i organized entry permission for a friend who used to serve on our base, and we milled around for about half an hour before i got back to my solitaire. the late afternoon was a bit of a blur of interesting work-related discussions and me stressing.

-- lying to the cute, well-intentioned girl on the bus --

i hopped off the bus, and walked through to meet ru55's girlfriend and pick up my calculus book. it's bloody heavy. we chatted for 50 seconds, and then i made my way to work (bumping into my tallest's ex, turns out she lives in the area).

my mother sent me an email laughing at me for my idea of studying engineering: most of my family on my mother's side are either in that or medicine :P

work SUCKED. i've now gotten most of it out of my system, the remainder of the evening was insane because my manager was almost as pissed off as me, and demanded that i call the guy - i had to learn his name, find his phone number (harassing a girl i've never met in order to get it), and eventually settle for mass emailing anyway. all this while handling mmf's RFIs (he's tampering with a website) and SxS's girl-friend trying to set me up with some french girl.

the final straw, when i was running late for the bus, was getting into the elevator and feeling something sharp in the middle of my back. i tested with my hand, and there was definitely something bothering me (my heavy bag on my back, not smart to not deal with it). so i hurriedly dropped my bag and was halfway through ripping off the windbreaker when the elevator doors opened.
so i moved my little mission to the foyer, where the guard stared at me in disbelief as i, in disbelief, removed a thick, inch-long nail from centre of the windbreaker's back.

how it got there is an absolute mystery to me, but it's the perfect physical embodiment of where my head's at. i handed the bent nail to the guard as i left, and just made the bus.

inpassing.org is excellent

the spraying of DOOM

i've just spent hours sitting with the salesman from our potential new provider. the last few php work days have been spent using trial and error to figure out what the hell's going on with their api, and nql didn't give me time to prepare before the guy arrived this evening. but that's an nql story that might live to piss me off another day.

i was shown the api's documentation - yet another set of automatic documentor pages ala javadoc but for php. and, just like our first provider (although to be fair, they've improved a lot since i first began shouting at them) they give me all the footprints, and none of the explanations.

my favourite is the "For use with this function.". for use? HOW? WHY? what does it DO? what the hell IS it?!

he was quite cocky and confident, until i showed him the specific object i've been having trouble with. i love how people just assume that i don't know my ass from my hat. he started giving me a lecture, but i interrupted him mid-sentence and showed him the function reference. it doesn't so much as specify a return type. he then spent over an hour sitting at one of our other workstations, combing through forums and anything resembling documentation that he could get his salesman's eyes on [one day i'll write about my childhood, and my hatred of salespeople will become clear], even going so far as to look through the api's from one of their providers.

then he got up, and began explaining to me how that's just the way it is, and i'll just have to deal with it. trial and error. fruitless searches through forums (even if the stuff is available, i've long ago learned how bad i am at searching - even googling is an issue for me). much var_dumping and maybe even reading through the provider's source code.

i'm calling my manager right now to tell him what i think of them.