i didn't think i'd make it!

but i got there a few minutes before my art closed, and managed to organize some very interesting bits. including lots... i mean lots... of multi-coloured pipe-cleaners.

and tinfoil! and brown spraypaint! and weird yellow netting!

the only thing missing is cardboard, i hope i have enough lying around.

costume shopping

i spent the morning running from office to office, which was irritating and humid. then i urg bussed to base, and spent the day doing sweet bugger-all because every fix disturbed something else and nothing was under my control. i just had to sit and watch tech-support fiddling.

i'm super-stressed about the gritty details concerning my move out of here.

weird al yankovic - young, dumb and ugly is playing in the background, it's been too many years since i've listening to this stuff!

off to try and organize costume materials.

signing off

i feel a bit better after talking to my mum, it's always good to verify that i'm not alone in my sanity.

i watched 25th hour, a beautiful, painful movie.

death cab for cutie - grapevine fires

today was a kak day

my back's still hurting, although it's gotten better during the day, but the day was spent fighting with our systems instead of actually working and then we went off to bowling, which was fun but fraught with frustration (when you suck, it's annoying) and i'm irritated at the expectation that *i'm* supposed to provide a prize alone because i agreed that a prize would be a good idea.

and then gco let me know that they found his uncle's body today, he was taken out in a random act of violence by four sixteen year-olds.

i just made it to the bus, and logged on to find an email from the company who's card i lost (with its 30% discount on an extremely large planned purchase) to demonstrate that they've completely confused my problem and provided me with useless assistance.

it's also the anniversary of my grandmother's passing away. today sucks.

a depressing ending to a nice day

i was already getting antsy because the live band was unadulterated, soulless suckage - and then gco and his sister were informed that their uncle has just been kidnapped in johannesburg.

why do people still choose to live there? my brother and most of my cousins are still holding on to something that really isn't in anyone's best interests.

summer's day 1 2009 part 2

curious george is a wonderful excuse for a jack johnson music video. cute movie, hard to stay awake for it :)

i started watching afro samurai, it's really pretty but very slow and quiet, more classic pop anime future-chop-socky than anything else, enjoyable but stretched out a bit too much. i'm almost done, watching it in pieces...

i slept most of last night and until the afternoon - unfortunately not always well, and my back's out again. at least i was okay for frisbee, and i made up for a static night / morning with crazy exercise and beer at the birthday picnic. when i got there i didn't see anyone, so i began with the traditional toasted bacon egg & cheese while reading this month's wired.

on the way there and back i was listening to the new penny arcade / player vs player DnD game [wizards archive], which caused no end of giggling during my journey.

speaking of giggling, i almost took a jogger out with the frisbee, he spotted it and managed an awkward lean-back which succeeded not only in saving him from injury but also in generating hysterical laughter at the sheer absurd smoothness of the motion.

i can't stop listening to puscifer - v is for vagina, i feel like i haven't fully absorbed enough of it yet. thanks to k-twang for providing the words to cover that sentiment.

off to mike's place to meet with gco and a beer.

summer's day 1 2009 part 1

the measuring went alright, i'm going to have to play around with the numbers at some stage this weekend. i came back home to make some gurgling noises with my guitar - i found my missing pick! it was in the refrigerator. i don't know how it got there.

i went with a couple of buddies for breakfast at duck's, and the girls were out to play :)
from there i went to the metzitzim beach for beers and frisbee, all of which was great except for the water being contaminated again :(

i just got home, showered, and am about to eat and watch curious george and afro samurai. i'm trying to decide if i want to see c.u.n.t. performing tonight, but i can't get their video to play...

from parody to measurement

the exhibition last night was a parody of high-society, and very amusingly so. the photography was wonderful, or more to the point, the make-up and attitudes of the israeli dj's being photographed were interesting and fun.

$1000 for a print? i don't know if that's a fair price, but there were a couple of them that i'd definitely put on my walls.

lake and i had coffee afterwards on a street-corner, she told me a story that made me really glad that i've never been to mount hermon for snowboarding. i've heard from a number of sources that it's not a good experience.

a horrible costume idea: dressing up as a giant turd in order to tell everyone that you're "the shit". that just ruined the expression for me, and it was one of my favourites :(

i spoke to my lawyer yesterday, and in sharp contrast to the agent she's still earning her fees - she got the papers directly from the seller's lawyer and is arranging all the grudwork with the registrar. she's awesome :)

i spoke to the plumber this morning, and i'm going to have to order the tiles and the shower doors three weeks before he arrives to check everything out. i find that a little... inconvenient.

that reminds me, lake and i walked past a shop window and she asked me what i thought of the giant, archaic bathtub with gold feet - i said the first thing that came to mind.
"it's absolutely perfect for slitting one's wrists in."
i could never be comfortable in a tub like that.

puscifer - queen b. is really freakin' cool. indigo children's been in my head for the last twelve hours.

i'm off now to measure the apartment.

half dreaming about laundry

there is nothing quite so tough as getting up from a wonderful, deep-sleep hour-long nap when you're exhausted and janis joplin is playing in the background.

i forgot to mention something super-disquieting yesterday: some woman shouting out at me "what a hot policeman!". ugh. you are confused, lady.

it was too hot to walk outside with a jacket on, we need more winter! this severe lack of water and rush for an even hotter summer just doesn't excite me in a good way.

the big dog outside the guitar store didn't like me. at all. i bought three picks, this time. and was less awkward about it.

last night, after showering with "the dribble" yet again, i decided to give installing that spare washer a try. it warn't no spare, neither. the shower head's working just fine now :)

double coffee marshmallow mocha, super roast-beef sandwich with thai sauce, and in two seconds off to a photo exhibition with lake. i'm probably not going out later on, too bloody tired.

is it here yet?

i can almost feel the weekend upon me...

today was great, i got to play my music for its entirety and we all hummed and nodded along to puscifer - cuntry boner (disco viagra remix). work was quite interesting, we had lots of giggles over some ridiculous ideas for polygraph stunts (i don't think i'll have to do it, but i'm intrigued... what happens if i pull the "what i'm saying now is a lie" line out? will they be annoyed?).

i had a chat with the shuttle driver, and explained to him that it's not okay if he curses out other drivers while he has soldiers in his charge. he agreed, and let me know that he has other methods of getting his own back and has employed them already - i told him that i don't really need to know.

i'm feeling a bit weak right now, just came back from shopping and i'm suddenly snotty and headachey - i was good most of today, ignoring lots of sneezing. at least the bread i bought is great quality :)

now to go buy picks. who the hell did i invite to the photo exhibition??!

big gushing fanboy

instead of resting or eating, i spent the next couple of hours playing with my ipod, tweaking it and getting the tracks workable. then i left, accidentally ordered a terrifically dairy sandwich (oops!) after storming off from bar gurion because the service and attitude were both horrible, then took a bus to levontin to have my socks knocked off.

yael deckelbaum's awesome. i've said so before. but yael deckelbaum with a band and a solid switch from folk to psychedelic plus covers of elvis and janis joplin was absolutely stunning - and her confidence has increased so much with other people on stage that she gave a fantastic stage performance in addition to being wonderfully talented musically and vocally.

and the place was packed. so yeah, we walked away really, really, really impressed. the first album's due in another month and a half, and i will DEFINITELY be at the unveiling show!

lies!!!

why?! why did i lie about the apartment to my landlord? that was a while back, and it's been creeping up to bite me in the ass... it just now came to a head, and after catching myself staring to the right i actually called him up to confess and apologize.

which, in a nutshell, means that i've broken faith with him and that was totally unnecessary :S

today began badly, with me switching off my alarm, then the other one, and then waking up (luckily only) forty-five minutes later. i managed to get to the bus on time, though, and by not catching the earlier one i ran into a girl i haven't seen in years (the neighbour's friend), i got her number before running into a guy i once studied with who's a new father and feeling the sleeplessness.

i was dead tired today, but mostly functional until just before lunchtime. then i started to feel bad, and things just went downhill from there. i got home in pain, although it's been a couple of hours getting better and i'm definitely feeling up to the show tonight.

i was so excited about introducing my crew to squid this morning, but i'd inadvertently ripped it to "oga" instead of mp3, and i've just spent about an hour online figuring out how to install the gstreamer stuff :S

i keep forgetting to post this: on my way to lake's the other night, i ran past a sign for a construction site that had been blown over, and all i could think of was if you can't put up a sign correctly, how the hell can i trust you with my home?!...

why does my ipod keep resetting?! this upsets me. oh! now it's doing the same to my rhythmbox player. maybe it's just a bad file.

another one of maynard's bitches

yeah, i'm now a big fan of puscifer, too. even when he's not being serious, he's awesome!

i joined the old crew at the flame for a few drinks and a bit of chatter, and we're meeting up again tomorrow to see yael deckelbaum. now i need to shower and get back into bed.

improvements

this morning was harsh. when i finally got onto base, i paid the clinic a visit and was told that my arbitrary unhealthiness doesn't warrant more than some throat lozenges. i was filled with scratchy goo this morning, so i'm rolling with it and hoping it doesn't get worse.

work was fun today - i used a cute trick to help me test one project with the use of a separate system, and i've been enjoying doing something more creative than is the norm ^_^

i discovered a tweak on the "put peanut-butter on marshmallows" theme: it has to go into your mouth peanut-butter side down, and you have to wait a second before you begin munching. this noticeably increases the effect :)

yay! my squid album arrived!

i'm completely bombed, going to nap before going out to an ex-team-mate's birthday outing.

probably a lot sicker than i feel

but only because i've consumed enough alcohol that my synapses are on "slow roast".

i'd go to the city officer but that's just too much effort.

new meme for me!

it's a facebook meme, but i can't post something this suggestive - and it's freakishly my style:

credit : photo from dr_nik - i'm sure this isn't okay, this is not my photo, so please check out her flickr as a token of my appreciation :)

quote by evelyn underhill.

1 - go to "wikipedia." hit “random”
or click http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Special:Random
the first random wikipedia article you get is the name of your band.

2 - go to "random quotations"
or click http://www.quotationspage.com/random.php3
the last four or five words of the very last quote of the page is the title of your first album.

3 - go to flickr and click on “explore the last seven days”
or click http://www.flickr.com/explore/interesting/7days
third picture, no matter what it is, will be your album cover.

4 - use photoshop [or gimp!] or similar to put it all together. (if you don't have it, here's an online photo editor: pixlr.com/)

conquistador part 1

a large, soy-sauced salad, then jalapeño pringles, a large dose of tequila and some more in a cup of hot chocolate while wigging out to lots of juno reactor (the title is the current track, i advise a listen at high volume) has improved my state of mind considerably, and the washing machine not failing was a bonus.

now i'm off - in the rain - to, umm, well... to drink some more. maybe it's not such a bad idea.

soaked, sick and irritable

this morning started out grand, i had a proper breakfast (granola, coffee and freshly squeezed orange juice) and plenty of time to get to the train station.

i finished what i was working on yesterday, and spent the remainder of the "work" day on a project that's going quite nicely. the "meeting" part of the day was terrible. it was a meta-meeting explaining to us the potential ramifications of not identifying potential problem areas before we begin on what is essentially a project in potentia.

let's all roll our eyes in unison.

the astronaut sits behind the partition by my desk and complained that he can't work if i talk on the phone. i didn't know how to respond to that, apparently he really expects me to leave the office for every call.

the seller's lawyer has found something to bitch about in a standard form mortgage bank contract - i hope that doesn't cause any delays - and i found a plumber who has some interesting ideas and comes highly recommended. now all i have to do is measure and plan.

i got caught in a downpour on the way home, and got absolutely drenched. it did make my headache lesson, which i find a bit strange. i was horrified at how bad the drainage problem is this year.

i'm going to brave the washing machine. then i'm going to go out and drink and bang my head on the bar.

in spite of myself

what is this? this higher level set of functions that ensures that at every step of the way i can clearly see - from as objective a viewpoint as a subjective being can manage - scenes as they should be played out... is ignored, repeatedly, by some subconscious, almost masochistic hidden determination to always choose the most difficult situation possible.

on the one hand, i know that i probably shouldn't have gone over there in the first place. on the other, i probably shouldn't have come back home.

blew through the sunday

did i get any work done today? i think so. a lot of copying and pasting, but it's nice to see results.

it was really kak getting out of bed and into the cold this morning, i was almost jealous of the dude sleeping under all the covers in the bus stop i waited next to.

on the way home our shuttle driver got into a fight with a taxi driver, which was unpleasant to see. it's great having "macho men" behind the wheel and in each other's faces.

this reminds me of a story i told my TL today which had him in hysterics: it's the story of my almost being accepted into the gay community - i walked into the office one night (while working helpdesk) and all the guys huddled around me to congratulate me on coming out of the closet - it took a while (like, a couple of weeks) to discover the source of that one.

someone in the office had overheard a phone conversation about someone else with the same name and had assumed it was me, and the original storyteller had been impossible to track down.

[i just retold that story to lake, and got laughed at for thinking that i'd have an easier time with guys. i *know* i would :P]

i went by the notary's, got my official documents and a congratulations: he was trying to impress upon me just how magnificent a purchase i've made. i know ^_^ (the assessor's excitement was a bit of a give-away)

i walked home, dipped out to buy shpachtel (plaster for the wall i knocked in), got a receipt from the agent's friend (they did a double-team on the sale), shopped and frantically (and unsuccessfully) searched for a gift card i received last september that could potentially afford me a 30% discount on the huge shopping i checked out on friday. i really, really hope it isn't lost.

at least i bought oranges and abused them for juice - i don't know how long it's been and i started wondering about scurvy. it says extended periods of time, and i wonder how that might be measured.

i went through the list of items i own with my flatmates, and it turns out that they don't want the couches - now i need to figure out transporting them and re-upholstering them. maybe i'll just buy a few rolls of funky-coloured cloth and a staple-gun?

lake just called me, her horse is being put down tomorrow so she's in need of cheering up. i just found out that my ride leaves an hour and a bit later than usual in the morning, so that kinda works out.