Rants over a cup of Coffee

We have moved

2005-12-17T18:35:00.000+02:00

We've moved to here.

Aviad tried to use his super-l33t advanced geek skills to import all the posts from here to the new site but it wasn't possible.

Apart from that, Wordpress is very nice and yes the theme of the new blog site is based on Mac OS X, but come on, you'd be disappointed if it wasn't, wouldn't you?

tags:[ new address ] [ moved ]

New Home

2005-12-17T11:35:00.000+02:00

Just as Joah is moving to a new home (with me!), the blog is moving too. Soon you will not find the blog here anymore (or rather, you won't find it updating here anymore), and it will be located in a new, better place.

I cannot reveal the new location yet as it's still a work in progress, but I can tell you it will have something to do with this post.

Stocking Fellas

2005-12-16T16:07:00.000+02:00

Marks and Spencer have come up with a solution for the hordes of men who are too embarrassed or too inept or too lazy to buy the right lingerie for their wife/girlfriend/ secretary/themselves at this ‘festive time’ – the Stocking Fella.

M&S report that tonnes of lingerie gets returned to their stores in January, presumably because women were presented with items that either didn’t fit or they don’t like. So they’ve trained guys to help pick out the perfect pair of pants based on a simple questionnaire about the woman’s personality. Are you sassy [=psychotic]? Flirty [=a tart]? Modern [=43 but dress like a 17 year old]? Glamorous [=overly made up]?

The problem with M&S’s lingerie department is that it combines frilly, lacy, floral garments called things like ‘The Balcony Range’ with those ultra control anti-cellulite pants that have the colour and consistency of a bunion pad. It’s disconcerting to be looking at Brazilian panties and then see a pair of beige control pants that would come up right under your bust.

Urgh.

tags:[ SOMETHING ] [ OTHER ]

Quakin'

2005-12-16T08:45:00.000+02:00

Last week (right after coming back from London) we had a big "show" of our software to our client. It was hard work, included staying very late at night (for some even sleep away from home) so we got Thursday off.

Unfortunately, no-one told me of this "Thursday off" business, so I came to work normally last Thursday. Seeing that no-one was here (except those who didn't participate), and having no work to do, I joined a couple of Quake IV games. Unfortunately for everyone, someone from our office saw us, and decided to rat on us to the boss (who wasn't there - Remember, Thursday off). So, here I am - Friday and I'm in the office. Punishment like any other punishment.

What I hate though is "rats". I hate them when they jump into my toilet, and I hate them more when they see something they don't like - Either because they want to do it themselves and can't or because they enjoy others being punished - And tell off to the boss later. It's just horrible, useless, and promotes creating a more secretive society at work, making work tiring and sometimes even more boring.

I enjoy playing computer games. When I do my work, which is a creative type of work, I sometimes stumble into "writer's blocks". Software writers have those too, and those who design software know what I'm talking about. Reading a book, going for a run, listening or playing music - These all help to "clear the mind" and get into the muse of design/code again. For me, playing games helps do the same - So taking 5-10 minutes off work (we play timed games) to "keep me going" shouldn't be punished.

On the other hand, I do understand how it affects others when people play games. The noise may disturb others (so we play with headphones). Others feel weird that they work while others play - That's why used to play during lunch break, if any. That day specifically no-one from my department was at the office, so it wasn't the case. And if it was, the right way to act is to ask from us not to play - Not run to the boss and tell.

I am just upset about the way some people act - Doing this only to feel like they have some power over others. Horrible.

tags:[ Power Freaks ] [ Quake ]

Argument Technique No. 3

2005-12-11T22:08:00.000+02:00

tags:[ SOMETHING ] [ OTHER ]

explosions

2005-12-11T17:28:00.000+02:00

This is crazy. The blast was heard up to 40 miles away. The smoke is passing over my house. I am 30 miles away from Hemel.

tags:[ SOMETHING ] [ OTHER ]

ויכוח

2005-12-09T23:04:00.000+02:00

Having been ill and rather demotivated by my boss saying something like "Thank you very much for your 8 page paper with colour illustrations sharing your creative ideas but you should have blah blah blah instead...oh is that exact thing on page 7? I didn't read it, I bought an iPod", I had some time to be despondent and ponder on the mysteries of life.

One such mystery of life is why Aviad is so good at winning arguments.

In the great traditions of Derrida and perhaps Wittgenstein, I decided to deconstruct Aviad's argument techniques to see if I could get closer to understanding The Great Master.

Here is a hypothetical argument, in which Aviad claims that black is white. I've tried to analyse it.

Aviad: Here is a white cake.

Me: It's black.

ARGUMENT TECHNIQUE NUMBER 1: "POLISH GUILT"
Aviad: You don't like it...I'm sorry...I carried this white cake for 3797864 miles back from the shop...just for you. Because I love you. No, no. My arm is not that sore...really...it's only broken in three places...it doesn't matter about the pain...I want you to enjoy yourself...you don't like the white cake...

Me: It's black

ARGUMENT TECHNIQUE NUMBER 2:"BOMBARDMENT WITH FACTS HASTILY GLEANED FROM ANSWERS.COM"
Aviad: The cake exhibits the achromatic color value of minimum lightness or maximum darkness; the colour of objects that absorb nearly all light of all visible wavelengths; one extreme of the neutral gray series, the opposite being white. Although strictly a response to zero stimulation of the retina, the perception of black appears to depend on contrast with surrounding colour stimuli. And not the achromatic colour of maximum lightness; the colour of objects that reflect nearly all light of all visible wavelengths; the complement or antagonist of black, the other extreme of the neutral gray series. Although typically a response to maximum stimulation of the retina, the perception of white appears always to depend on contrast.

Me: It's black

ARGUMENT TECHNIQUE NUMBER 3: "CUTE LITTLE BOY"
Aviad: (Making eyes big and brown and dewy, like a fluffy baby red panda) I'm sorry baby...I forgot...

Me: It's sort of a light black.

Aviad missed his vocation and should be a lawyer. Why he is studying the intestines of coral I have no idea.

tags:[ אביעד ] [ מהשהו ]

Inspire me

2005-12-08T21:41:00.000+02:00

After a particularly stupid morning, which I can sum up as "How Many Management Theories Does It Take To Change A Lightbulb", I went to the Borders book megastore on Oxford Street. I randomly picked up a book entitled something like 'Inspirational Quotes for the Modern Life' and opened it to a quote that read something like:

"I didn't get to where I am today by following rules. I got to where I am by following my dream" - Anonymous

Anonymous???!!!!

That's great,, very inspirational, thank you. Just where ARE You today, exactly, Mr Anonymous? You could be in a rehab centre, or selling the Big Issue, or sweeping the streets. For heaven's sake.

tags:[ SOMETHING ] [ OTHER ]

מה????????????????

2005-12-06T23:52:00.000+02:00

I'm trying to do my Hebrew homework and I decided that it would be a great idea to try to find an Israeli radio station I can listen to over the internet. What could be simpler?

It turns out that a lot of things could be simpler.

I found a radio station that plays wall to wall trance hits, briefly interspersed by comments in English.

The army station, "IDF WAVE", has an MSN site that does not work on Camino or Safari, and Internet Explorer for Mac does not support Hebrew.

I found a Haredi station that explores issues from an ultra-Orthodox standpoint.

Then I found this: Israel National Radio. I'm not convinced it isn't a parody.

There's this classic philosophical debate:
"What does G-d look like? Can people really only imagine G-d in a human form? If G-d exists, then what are our responsibilities in this world? Also: You will laugh when Tamar teases Tovia on how Hollywood has raised us into accepting their absurd realities as the 'real' world." I just bet I'll laugh til I wet myself, Tamar!

Don't miss this treat: "Goatherders Moshe and Ephraim discuss their biblical profession, and the production of organic, and delicious goat yogurt." Go, Moshe and Ephraim!

Or this one: "Yehoshafat sells organic eggs from the Shomron and Frank Sinatra sings about plane hijackings. Also: JDate becomes Gay-Date."

I'm definitely tuning into this one: "Join Alex and Yishai for a no-holds-barred discussion with Rabbi Maury, a certified Mohel"

And my personal favourite: "So you think you're a Gentile? Think again!"

And honestly, people have to ask why I want to live in Israel? This is awesome!

tags:[ SOMETHING ] [ OTHER ]

So it wasn't Coke after all...

2005-12-05T21:49:00.000+02:00

I always knew it was a Dutch thing, but I never knew the whole story - And I honestly thought that it was Coke who invented the red-and-white colours.

This tells a different story... Interesting.

tags:[ Santa ] [ Cola ]

DOOM

2005-12-05T20:16:00.000+02:00

Avah and I went to see the DOOM movie a couple of days ago.

We knew in advance that this was not going to be an intellectual/cultural/quality movie experience (but that suits me fine - after my course in Russian and Soviet Cinema, I really am allergic to "art" movies. You try sitting through 3 hours of black and white film with this sort of plot: "At one point he is in desperate need of clay to fortify the mold for the bell, but can't find earth of the right consistency anywhere. Then fate intervenes and, chasing a lost shoe, he slides down a hill into a muddy patch of just the right kind of clay" and you will also feel this way. DOOM is obviously also not a RomCom as I loathe those too).

So what is DOOM about? I didn't have any hopes about plot or acting, but what I really, really wanted to see were these:

But it was not to be...

There were a couple of zombies and some poor attempts at the monkey creatures. But not a single pink pig thing, not a single giant head spitting fire...nothing. What a disappointment. There was a rather poor attempt at some rather cliched 'science gone wrong something to do with DNA' plotlines, a tiny section of first-person action, and OK, they had the BFG.

But no-one had to find a red keycard.

I hope King Kong is a better film to make up for this.

tags:[ DOOM ] [ AWFULMOVIES ]

Pledgebank

2005-12-05T17:46:00.000+02:00

This, from an 'underappreciated charity worker, caught my eye

But then, seriously, why? Why?

tags:[ CHARITY ] [ JOBS ]

Speaking Hebrew

2005-12-04T20:14:00.000+02:00

Today I had my Hebrew class (to which Aviad, ironically, was not admitted for security reasons) with a more advanced group. It's quite a bit harder than my previous class and I realised how much practice I need at speaking. Although the other people in the class have had far more tuition than me, either having a formal qualification from school and/or going to classes for over a year. So from that sense, I'm doing OK. But I have a Russian accent.

tags:[ SOMETHING ] [ OTHER ]

קיבוץ אביעד

2005-12-03T12:19:00.000+02:00

ָ
Aviad made a little base. Note all the electronic devices.

tags:[ קיבוצים ] [ אביעד ]

Explorer Destroyer

2005-11-30T07:00:00.000+02:00

I saw this a couple of days ago, and as a gag decided to add it to our site as at level 3. So, if you have Microsoft Internet Explorer, you would probably Not be reading these lines. Tee hee.

tags:[ Internet Explorer ] [ Microsoft ]

Canaan in Palestine?!

2005-11-26T17:27:00.000+02:00

Looking at the definition for Canaan, I noticed their definiton specifies Canaan's location in Palestine. I promptly emailed them and brought to their attention the foundation of the State of Israel. I hope they will correct their dictionaries soon, as they seem to have been outdated for more than half a century now!

tags:[ Israel ]

WoW cards being sold!

2005-11-25T15:03:00.000+02:00

Finally some good news about the Geekim Store. We started selling WoW Game Cards last week (friday), and since we had No orders until Thursday I decided to post an enquiry about it. It's not that I wanted to cry about no-one ordering; I was just frustrated because me and Dima (my partner) worked really hard to make these cards available and even though we didn't expect a rush for gold, we expected at least some positive response. What we got instead was a slap in the face in the form of forum comments saying that the price is too expensive, it's not worth ordering,etc. This was upsetting because we already discussed the target price and the chance of ordering with them, and they seemed happy about it Before we started the whole procedure.

So I made that post at the forum yesterday noon, and today we have 3 orders already. I am excited! We're really not going to make a fortune out of this - But the people who came in looking for the WoW cards practically scanned through the whole store. Our benefit was not only the ordering - It was mainly the publicity our products got.

I just hope this marks the beginning of a wave of orders.

tags:[ World of Warcraft ] [ Geekim ]

Lorem ipsum dolor sit amet, consectetuer adipiscing elit. Donec cursus.

2005-11-25T10:17:00.000+02:00

After seeing a lot of Lorem Ipsum blah blah blah on many web pages and even in Pages I decided to google for the term and found this.

Lorem Ipsum is simply dummy text of the printing and typesetting industry. Lorem Ipsum has been the industry's standard dummy text ever since the 1500s, when an unknown printer took a galley of type and scrambled it to make a type specimen book. It has survived not only five centuries, but also the leap into electronic typesetting, remaining essentially unchanged. It was popularised in the 1960s with the release of Letraset sheets containing Lorem Ipsum passages, and more recently with desktop publishing software like Aldus PageMaker including versions of Lorem Ipsum.

Incredible. The page even contains a Loren Ipsum Generator!

tags:[ Lipsum ]

Flat on the market

2005-11-21T21:32:00.000+02:00

I just put my flat on the market. If you have £130,000 you can buy it. (I know, that's ridiculously cheap for London.)

In a way this is scary. Change is scary. But if nothing changes then you die not knowing what's out there or only having seen different things on a TV screen whilst you stuff your face with Cheeto Doritos. Pushkin wrote that habit is a gift from Heaven, it's a substitute for happiness, Привычка свыше нам дана/ Замена счастию она.

It's like skiing (no really, it is - skiing is analogous to lots of things) - you stand at the top of a snow covered mountain with bits of plastic strapped to your feet clutching two little spiky poles thinking JUST WHAT THE HELL AM I DOING and you're cold and frankly terrified and then you just let go and you're flying and the sky is blue ice and crystals and you're so close you can touch it.

tags:[ flat ] [ scary change stuff ]

Two tickets please

2005-11-19T00:27:00.000+02:00

Going to my parents' for the weekend, I had to take the bus. It was too crowded, so I had to somehow squeeze myself in near the driver.

Looking above him I saw a few labels, some asking passengers to move into the back of the bus (unfortunately, this was not possible at all), some saying that smoking is prohibited, and one of them saying what requires pay. Obviously grown people (aged older than 5 years) are required to pay, but the list named:

2 children (5 years or below)

Foldable Children Cart

Suitcase sized 60cm or more

A radio receiver

Two points about this: First, it looked genuine. More than that, I know that a friend of mine, carrying a parrots' cage, was charged a special passenger's pet seat (which cost the same as a regular passenger). Second, why the hell would they charge for a radio receiever? I can understand the other stuff... They're relatively big. But a radio receivers??

My assumption is that it was a really Really old label, and was printed when radio receivers were the size of a house. Or slightly less - Probably a seat or two. It's amazing what you can find on old buses, really.

tags:[ Bus ]

Amazcokebucksmart

2005-11-15T20:47:00.000+02:00

Amazon gets patent on customer reviews.

"User reviews are a hot new content area, being used by Google, Yahoo and MSN to sweeten their local search results. But as of Thursday, such consumer reviews could put search providers, as well as thousands of e-commerce sites, video rental or review sites and online booksellers, in the sights of Amazon.com's lawyers."

This is crazy. It's like me patenting the way I laugh and then suing anyone else who laughs the same way. If we'd had this ridiculousness previously we would not have evolved. We would still be living in caves, scared to go out and hunt woolly mammoth, in case Amazomammoth's lawyers called and sued us for using their patented spear. You can imagine the uproar when Fire (R) (C) (TM) was discovered.

Why don't we just give in and have one giant company doing everything? We could call it Amacolabucksmart.

tags:[ insanity ] [ rageagainstthemachine ]

WoW cards

2005-11-11T16:40:00.000+02:00

We've been trying to get WoW time cards to our store, to no avail. I contacted Blizzard, which directed me to Hed Arzi (who have no site), which, after more than a week of checking, decided they're not going to distribute these cards At All.

Unacceptable to us, we're now trying to get these cards from Blizzard themselves (or rather, their French distributers). I hope it works out - I really want the store to start selling these. Even if we barely make a profit, it's a good service to the WoW community in Israel - And the store is all about Israeli geeks and gamers, after all.

tags:[ Israel ] [ Blizzard ]

recreational impossibilities

2005-11-09T23:52:00.000+02:00

If I had to give this week a description, it would probably have to be something like "The Indomitability of the Human Spirit & You: Dealing With a Ridiculous World". Or possibly something less pretentious but along the same lines.

Banal, banal things like having to read my electricity meter located in a cupboard outside the back door of the block, and finding a man in vest and flip-flops smoking drugs leaning against it, at 8 am of all times. And sitting squashed on the 253 bus from Manor House with tides of Polish workers eating Chicken Meal Deals with Zingy Wings and reading Polish language newspapers that declare "In London, the Streets are Covered in Money", which is not true, they are covered in dog crap, it's the Cloaca Maxima here. And trying to phone my bank. Who don't answer. And then having to speak to some robot like call centre operative and say over and over again DON'T SEND MY CREDIT CARDS IN THE MAIL THEY WILL GET STOLEN whilst they say Thank you for your patience Ms Para...Para...Para...Para...Are you interested in a lifestyle check up. A lifestyle check up. LIFESTYLE.

And the sheer craziness of spending TEN MONTHS asking with increasing desperation to be allowed to do what I am paid to do, i.e. supporter development for a charitable cause, not write stupid papers for committee after committee, and just before I have to quit I find myself in creative meetings with marketing agencies and doing chi-squared sums on data.

And people being phobic of potted plants.

And the Regent Street X-mas lights. In November. Which are decorated with characters from the Disney movie Ice Age. Hello, incongruity. Welcome to consumerville.

I want to go to a stupidly expensive bar and drink gin martinis.

And I miss Aviad like hell. Which is the main and only point.

tags:[ SOMETHING ] [ OTHER ]

Hebrew Reinforcement Project

2005-11-08T00:20:00.000+02:00

I found out that, apparently, the Jewish Agency have Hebrew classes on Sundays. So far, no-one from the Jewish Agency has answered the telephone, but I remain hopeful that they will before next Sunday.

I also learned that there is this radio programme in Hebrew, with explanations in Russian. It's run by the Ministry of Immigrant Absorption (I always get a mental image of a giant sponge when I hear the word "Absorption") and you can hear it online. A guy tells you about verbs in Hebrew, then a woman calmly explains them in Russian. It has the title of "Hebrew Time" and the project is called "HEBREW REINFORCEMENT", which is too brilliant to be true. YOU WILL SPEAK HEBREW!

tags:[ HEBREW ] [ CRAZYISRAELIS ]

Joah has left the building

2005-11-06T18:22:00.000+02:00

Joah has left Israel again... It's a sad time again.

It's time for waiting, finding flights - We can't be apart for too long, after all.

Already we have a flight planned for this Xmas. Luckily, all the Xtians are busy with their trees so us jews can wander around for our Hanukias! And our Joahs!

I miss Joah..

tags:[ Flight ]

General public opinion of stuff and things

2005-11-06T18:09:00.000+02:00

I get really annoyed with general public opinions. I will give the newest rant about it, as an example, and about one of my favorite topics, the iPod.

After I bought my iPod, a lot of people asked me why I bought the iPod for. I said that it's a really good device for listening music with and that it wasn't expensive (I got it 25% off price on a sale) and that it did everything I wanted it to do. So then they asked if it can show pictures and show movies, and asked if it was colourful and gave an example of the iriver as an example for a colourful interface music player that could show photos.

When, around half a year later, iPod Photo came out with the ability to show photos and with a graphical interface, do you think people said to themselves "Wow.. So now it's good to buy.." ? Obviously not. What they would go on to do is claim that "This is just a gimick and it's useless". So what was so exciting about the iriver, I ask?

Let me just refer you to the "Top Seller" list of Amazon, both in Computers and in Electronics Audio & Video, and you could notice how the people vote with their wallets which is the better product.

tags:[ Apple ] [ iPod ]

Make Stupidity History

2005-11-02T19:58:00.000+02:00

In a surprise report today the BBC noted that despite the Make Poverty History campaign and the amazing success of the Live 8 concerts, poverty still exists in Africa.

I always enjoy reading the BBC Readers' Comments, as they are often a source of deep insight into many world problems. Like this one from Peter in Nottingham.

"This article repeats the line that "fair trade will eliminate poverty". Sadly most Africans don't make anything that I wish to trade for. When Sierra Leone makes a good small car or a DVD player I'll be interested...as it stands I just don't want millet or sorghum, regardless of how great the trade deal is."

So, Peter, what you're saying is that if you go down to your local Sainsbury's and millet is on a two for one offer, you wouldn't buy it? Because it's not what you want? And that's why Africa's poor?

I guess that's why Cambodia is rich, because it makes Nike and Gap clothes in its local sweatshops, and Westerners want to buy Nike and Gap.

Steve, from London, questions what Jesus would do - looks like there's a theological conundrum here for X-tians...

"Its intersting isn't it, the paradox of churches being on the front-line of MPH when Jesus said that the poor will always be with us."

Our own MPH event was cancelled recently because it was supposed to coincide with International Cuisine Day in our restaurant but they decided to have a British Food Day instead.

tags:[ SOMETHING ] [ OTHER ]

Awful, awful songs

2005-11-02T18:16:00.000+02:00

There are a number of songs of such abysmal taste, which, when they are played, put me into a raging fury.

Here are the worst offenders.

If You’re Not The One by Daniel Bedingfield

This emetic is what inspired this particular rant – someone chose to have this as their ringtone, as a result of which it’s being running through my head all afternoon. I hate this song because not only is it utterly, utterly pathetic, the lyrics are terrifying, and clearly have been written by a psychopathic stalker. Hey, Daniel, obey your restraining order already.

If I’m not made for you then why does my heart tell me that I am?
Is there any way that I can stay in your arms? (NO)

If I don’t need you then why am I crying on my bed? (WHAT)
If I don’t need you then why does your name resound in my head?(BECAUSE YOU’RE A SCHIZOPHRENIC)

Lady in Red by Chris de Burgh

I've never seen so many men ask you if you wanted to dance
They're looking for a little romance, given half a chance
I have never seen that dress you're wearing
Or the highlights in your head that catch your eyes I have been blind

HELLO LADIES

You Say It Best (When You Say Nothing At All) - by Boyzone

OK, let’s think about this one. This guy is saying that his ladyfriend is best when she is silent. You know, when she’s not talking. How is this a good thing?

You say it best when you say nothing at all
You say it best when you say nothing at all
You say it best when you say nothing at all

There’s a London radio station, called MAGIC FM, that plays these things all the time. Makes me want to weep.

tags:[ SOMETHING ] [ OTHER ]

Hair by...who?

2005-11-01T19:45:00.000+02:00

I'm poor because I spend all my money supporting this worthy cause, but lately I realised that I really need a haircut. http://www.blogger.com/img/gl.link.gif

I asked around and discovered that people spend around £60 on a haircut. £60 is an insane amount to spend just for having some incredibly thin guy named Dieter or Sascha snip bits of your hair, saying "Oooh love I think you need to use more serum on the ends, darling...I did Kylie's hair once", whilst a chain smoking Russian or Polish chick dressed in footless tights, a denim mini skirt, and an impossibly thick belt reads Vogue and scowls at you.

So on the recommendation of someone who wasn't actually bald, I went here. That's right. Hair by Fairy. Fairy.

Now, in spite of being a centre that has a unique vibe and attracts all the very latest fashion aficiados, and is reported regularly in the German and Japanese press, it costs only £12.50. Works for me. Even if the website boasts Bob Geldof as a client. Now, I don't rate Bob's hairstyle.

Hair by Fairy was populated by Polish and Russian chain smoking women and had the obligatory Sascha/ Dieter type, but was run on very different lines to other salons.

"Take your seat for the washing", I was told on entrance. No coffee, no glossy magazine, no complimentary biscotti. A woman with latex gloves scrubbed my head, then it was over to a hyper trendy Japanese girl brandishing scissors. Some of our chat was lost in translation, in particular the question: "I chop you with lazer?" (Turns out she didn't want to attack me with a light sabre, merely add some interesting textures to my hair with a razor blade).

I would recommend HAIR BY FAIRY to all those wanting a salon experience but not an extra mortgage to cope with paying for it.

tags:[ SOMETHING ] [ OTHER ]

First day at the University

2005-10-31T21:51:00.000+02:00

Monday I went to the university for the first time.

It was... Different. I was late. I got lost in a maze of buildings. When I got to my building, I didn't know where my class was (I forgot my schedule in the office).

Okay, so it wasn't different as I was late - I'm always late - But it was different in concept. I had to sit with another 150 people in an auditorium. The professor spoke. People listened. Since most of the class were women, I could notice that everyone Wrote Something. I couldn't find anything to write. Especially since they said the presentations they used would be available online and they didn't say much around what was shown in the presentations.

I mentioned the majority of women: It's surprising to me because I never considered Biology to be a subject studied by mostly women. It's not like it's Literature. But there I was, with a lot of women in the class - And I know some of the people reading this would say "Damn this is Kitch" and "Smootchie Moochies" (You, OMER), but all I was thinking was "How I wished Joah was here, to sit next to me". I kept SMSing her, too - I think Orange made a nice profit on me today.

Now, a step back: I started studying Biology this Sunday. I only came to the first class Monday, and met some people (even though I was late). I didn't use the laptop yet - Not much to write, and the auditorium wasn't very comfortable for laptop-use anyway. I did see 4 people out of the 150 using a laptop though so I guess it's possible.

Today we had two classes, two hours each: Ecology, in which we had a preview about the course which would explain to us about what is Biodiversity, and the Kingdom Animalia introduction course, which would talk about several groups of animals and how they live, inside and out.

They seemed to be interesting courses. The Ecology course is video taped so I can watch it online later, and not show up to classes. The KA intro is not, but there is a video recording of the course from two years ago, given by the same guy, viewable online. He suggested we view that one, as well. Since I can't appear on both classes almost at all, I need to really rely on these videos.

I was surprised at the university's order in everything. Everything was online - Schedules, tests, videos, even the course's books are online and available as PDFs. An amazing system, really. At first impression, TAU doesn't seem as bad as I thought it is. I know it's much better than other universities my friends go to, like Bar Ilan, in theri services, and that's a good thing. I just can't compare it to places like the Technion, and since I can't even study there if I wanted to, it's not relevant.

I hope the rest of the year would go smoothly. This is the first week and it should be quiet - Only Monday and the rest is off. I'll need to watch course videos on Wednesday, though.

tags:[ University ] [ Biology ]

WebObjects and Documentation

2005-10-29T19:01:00.000+02:00

I've been working for a while with WebObjects and I must say I enjoy this well thought-of framework. I particulary enjoy the fact that almost everything I could ask for was already tried and done, so that most google searches get what I want to do without any code to implement.

So, when I wanted to send an automated email when a specific event occurs, I wasn't surpirsed to find WOMailDelivery. I was, however, surprised to find this in the documentation:

protected Object mailSession: Intentionally undocumented.

Now, it's not a first when implementations don't want to talk about their internals. But why put it in the docs as intentioanlly undocumented? They could have made it "private", but they probably wanted to use it in their own subclasses. So why not tag it as "undocumented" in javadoc?

Sometimes I just can't understand programmers. And I am one!

tags:[ WebObjects ] [ Development ]

Customer Service: Village Idiot Style

2005-10-28T18:41:00.000+02:00

I have experienced the absolute nadir of British customer service.

By trying to do three simple things with three different companies, I exposed myself to customer service so poor I can only think that all three organisations hired the biggest and best village idiots to devise their customer service departments.

Simple Thing No. 1: Cancelling My Phone Contract With Hutchison 3G (www.three.co.uk)

I have been unfortunate enough to have a phone contract with Three for a little over a year now. During this time, I have frequently been unable to make or receive actual phone calls but have been bombarded with video text message advertisements and a mountain of junk mail and many marketing telephone calls asking me to purchase the latest Britney Spears video or ringtone.

Because I am moving to Israel I do not wish to have another year long contract with Three so I telephoned them by dialling "333" on my keypad.

It took FORTY MINUTES to get through to a customer services representative in their call centre in Mumbai. During this FORTY MINUTES I had to endure Three's horrific attempts to sell me more things - instead of hold music they had advertisements. The advertisement consisted of an overenthusiastic woman yelling, over the hideous sounds of Charlotte Church's latest single, about how I could win a copy of Charlotte's new album, "Tissues and Issues". The woman had adopted a sort of "street speke" semi-literate accent, clearly aimed at Three's majority customers, who are obviously aged about 12 and are criminally insane. "Gerron yer mobile and yer can win a wickid date wiv Charlotte and a copy of 'er new singul for jus' a twenny pee fone call! Don' miss vis excitin new offer frum Free! Dial Free on yer keypad now for the latest ringtunes!!"

Just when I thought I could take no more, I got through to an enthuiastically polite gentleman in the Mumbai customer service centre, who I could barely hear because Three must have been using the cheapest VOIP line to India. It took TEN MINUTES for him to spell my name, and then he tried to sell me another contract, and only when I said that I was actually weeping did he transfer me to another operative, which meant I had FIVE MORE MINUTES on hold listening to Charlotte Church.

Simple Thing No. 2: Purchasing a Pay As You Go SIM Card From Orange

As I am cancelling my contract with Three, I wished to buy a pay as you go SIM card so that I may make and receive telephone calls. I decided to buy such a SIM card from Orange's online store. A day later I received an effusive HTML email from a Customer Services representative named Chris, with a photograph of a wonderful orange sunset. Chris was delighted that I had chosen Orange and wanted to welcome me. He wanted to let me know that I would receive my SIM card in just two days.

Seven days later I tried to telephone Chris to ask him where my SIM card was. Chris had no telephone number, so I dialled the number on the Orange Shop website. This time the hold music was Vivaldi's The Four Seasons. I felt a deep sense of sympathy for Vivaldi, who had no idea when composing his masterpiece that it would be used as background music whilst people waited on hold for Customer Services representatives.

Orange had no idea where my SIM card was but reassured me that it was 'probably on it's way, innit'.

Three days later I phoned Orange again. They had no idea where my SIM card was but have assured me that they have posted another one which I will get 'probably sometime next week, yeah?'

Simple Thing No. 3: Buying Books from Amazon

I bought some books from Amazon. I was told they had been despatched. Today I noticed a piece of paper on the floor outside my block of flats which I assumed was litter so picked up. Before throwing it away I read it and saw it was a note from DHL saying they had tried to deliver something at 10 am, when I am obviously at work, but had taken it to a depot in Enfield because no-one was home, where I may collect it during working hours, which is helpful because during working hours I am at work. Nowhere near Enfield (thankfully).

I called DHL. There was no hold music as I got cut off. Eventually, I got through to a computer which reassured me that my call was important to it.

Finally, after 10 minutes of 'Every Breath You Take', followed by 'Everything I Do (I Do It For You), I got through to a human who told me that they could deliver the package to my work address, probably sometime next week assuming Keith gets in and sees my email.

I can't express how happy I am to be emigrating.

tags:[ SOMETHING ] [ OTHER ]

Mac Development Center?

2005-10-27T20:43:00.000+02:00

For a long time it has bothered me that Mac Developers seem unrightfully deprived of the Mac hype - Even though you could find a lot of information on the ADC, it's not the same as what Apple has in their stores alone, such as The Studio Series.

Giving a pack of services for starting developers might draw more people into the Apple development world. Cocoa, WebObjects, and just general Unix development could benefit greatly from an Apple or Apple-related service for people who choose to develop their applications on the Apple platform. The documentation is great, but docs are not enough: What about some added-value?

For example, there are Grpahics, Video-Editing and Music "clubs" all over the world offering people first-hand experience with different software. Xcode has its quirks but it's a good product; WebObjects however, you couldn't find anyone to give you hosting for developmnent purposes only for less than 30$/month. For ASP.NET you would find for 2.5$/month, for J2EE you could find at around 4$/month.

And what about CVS hosting? And not only for OpenSource, where SoureForge are doing a great job keeping it alive. Even for closed service, low-budget, start-up ocmpanies/groups. These starting developers can't be expected to buy a full Mac OS X Server and a hardware to go along with it just because they wanted to stress test their application on WebObjects, to benchmark it against Hibername with Tapestry, for example. Neither can they be expected to pay 30$/month for it. Also, an opportunity for developers deploying their application to stress test it on a Mac to see how powerful it is might and should draw deployers to purchase Mac hardware for their deployment and hosting needs.

I will try to see how I can implement this type of "Digital Times" for developers. A set of services given for developers to try out, to use and to benchmark, all Mac-style.

Wish me luck!

tags:[ Development ] [ Apple ]

Staying in Touch - With Captain Connected!

2005-10-26T07:53:00.000+02:00

A few days ago my phone died, and since Joah couldn't reach me, she decided to teach me about the importance of being available on the phone, or as she called it, "Staying Connected".

For that, she used her favorite super-hero, "Captain Connected". This was a keynote presentation but since I can't really upload it here, we will have to make do with exported images.

tags:[ Cellphones

Geekim Store - First orders

2005-10-25T12:35:00.000+02:00

In a really weird sequence of events, the store had two orders for the BSOD shirt. Now, the site is still in building progress - We just put on ads to test how it would go (and paid for them more than we thought we would) and got a lot of visitors, most of them weren't buying.

But, as said, we had two orders, one guy also joined the "members club" Dima had set up there (in it's temporary form) and evengot new shirt ideas.

Can't say I was expecting this, but I'm not displeased.

[ Shirts

[ Israel

[ Geek

Things about stuff

2005-10-24T20:09:00.000+02:00

This made me laugh. It might be because I used to know someone irritating who used this as what he described as his 'signature font'.

Here's the source , which has some great fake adverts.

Stuff

Things

You've got a funny name

2005-10-23T22:14:00.000+02:00

I get really sick of people telling me I have a 'funny name'. Pretty much every day I have to go through an interaction like this one:

PERSON: Could I take your name please?

ME: Yes, it's [long Polish name with lots of z's]

PERSON: That's a funny name!

ME: Yes, it's hilarious. Cracks me up every time.

PERSON: Is it Hungarian?

ME: Polish.

PERSON: I met someone from Poland once.

ME: Oh.

PERSON: You speak good English!

Imagine that, or something similar, EVERY TIME you spell your name, EVERY DAY.

And what's funny about a Polish name anyway, for Heaven's sake? To show you what a really funny name would look like I have researched extensively (searched on the internet for 2 minutes) and would like to share some research scientists' funny names with you:

Fabricius K, De'ath G, McCook L, Turak E, Williams DM.
Changes in algal, coral and fish assemblages along water quality gradients on the inshore Great Barrier Reef.

Dangendorf V, Schuhmacher H, Titt U, Tittelmeier K.
Imaging of microscopic features of charged particle tracks in a low-pressure gas.

von Segesser LK, Poop J, Laske A, Niederhauser U, Schonbeck M, Vogt P, Turina M.
Surgical therapy in unstable angina pectoris

Field SJ, Thornton NP, Anderson LJ, Gates AJ, Reilly A, Jepson BJ, Richardson DJ, George SJ, Cheesman MR, Butt JN.
Reductive activation of nitrate reductases.

So leave me alone.

Charity hymn?

2005-10-21T16:59:00.000+02:00

(You need sound for this one).

I've worked for a few charities now, and although I've been part of some odd stuff, like branding groups where you have to say what sort of dog, car, celebrity chef, or member of the Royal Family the charity reminded you of, I've never experienced a charity hymn before.

That's because I haven't worked for the Association of International Glaucoma Societies.

Here are the lyrics; Andrew Lloyd Webber, take note:

Glaucoma Hymn
Glaucoma, Glaucoma, Glaucoma
Constricting vision slowly
Halted by progress of science
Vision of a world united
Beyond all science knowing

(Also - apologies for cynicism, but vision of a world united?

iTrip not so trippin'

2005-10-20T17:38:00.000+02:00

A while ago I got an iTrip for my iPod. Placing it on my home radio worked, but moving it just an inch above it made it stopped working. Obviously in my car I couldn't place it directly on the radio, so in areas like Tel Aviv where there is a lot of pirate stations around I couldn't hear a thing.

It worked great, however, once you get far away from Herzelia towards the north.

Anyway, I just noticed this hack. I think I will try it - What have I got to lose? Practically speaking, I HAVE lost my money on the iTrip, as it works just barely.

(Hope I don't screw it up, though)

tags iTrip

Blank Links

2005-10-17T23:34:00.000+02:00

I have sent a rant mail to the Apple Developer Connection's (the ADC, which is Apple's MSDN) support team, and received a weird letter in response:

Hello Aviad,

Thank you for contacting the Apple Developer Connection regarding Java and WebObjects.

Information regarding Java and WebObjects can be found at the following web page:

Alternatively, you can obtain further support for various Apple technologies via our Developer Mailing Lists:

You may wish to submit an Enhancement Request to Apple regarding any improvements you feel would be helpful by using the ADC Bug Reporter. This will ensure that your request is dealt with by the appropriate Apple team.

Information regarding submitting bug reports through the Bug Reporter can be found on our web site at:

The Bug Reporter allows ADC members to submit bug reports or enhancement requests directly into our bug database. The Bug Reporter also allows ADC members to check limited status on bug reports, originated by the member.

We hope that this information is of assistance to you. If you have any additional questions please feel free to contact us.

And I ask - WHY? Why bother having an automated response tool, if it doesn't even give me correct links? I can see two sad things coming out of this:

1. I could send them a mail saying I got no links - But then their automated response system would come up again saying that I should submit it to the Bug Reporter and Again not specify a link!
2. I could go to the Bug Reporter and report a bug - But I don't have the link!

Luckily, Google was on my side once again, and I have found the Bug Reporter.

And Joah thought I was weird.

Quote of the Day

2005-10-17T22:33:00.000+02:00

Today has been a weird day.

At work I received a sample of a teatowel in the post, with a letter explaining that teatowels and tea cosies can help me raise vital funds for my charity.

But this is the weirdest thing, from a certain wookie:

Avah: i don't have a graven image of steve jobs
Avah: i actually have Bill Gates' image in my mind. i can't get it out.

I worry. I really worry.

Wookies

2005-10-16T21:27:00.000+02:00

Just because they will make Avah smile.

Newspeke

2005-10-15T17:24:00.000+02:00

I really do try not to get all Eats, Shoots and Leaves too often, being picky about people's misuse of grammar and language.

But every so often I do have a Kingsley Amis moment and something really, really gets to me, like fingernails scraping down the blackboard of my soul.

Corporate newspeke is the thing that never fails to get to me. I want to stand up and yell, NO NO NO when people start to seriously talk of Blue Sky moments and Thinking Outside the Box and Upskilling and Taking a Helicopter View.

But the thing that really takes it all too far, way too far, is the recent obsession with employees talking of being 'passionate' about work-related things.

Passionate. Of, or relating to, passion.

Just yesterday I had to endure some woman in a suit jumping around describing her passion for spreadsheets. "I'm passionate! I'm passionate about spreadsheets!!!," she shrieked. Please note that the three exclamation marks I just used are an attempt to render her out-of-proportion excitement and not an indication of a wider misuse of punctuation.

Here's the definition of "passion":

Passion (n.)

A powerful emotion, such as love, joy, hatred, or anger.
1. Ardent love.
2. Strong sexual desire; lust.
3. The object of such love or desire.
1. Boundless enthusiasm: His skills as a player don't quite match his passion for the game.
2. The object of such enthusiasm: Soccer is her passion.
An abandoned display of emotion, especially of anger: He's been known to fly into a passion without warning.

So, spreadsheet woman, what were you saying exactly? That you feel a strong sexual desire or lust for spreadsheets? That Excel gets you all hot and bothered?

Or that you feel a boundless enthusiasm for spreadsheets? You think about them all the time?

Or that you display abandoned emotion, particularly anger whenever Excel starts? Now, that's sort of plausible, because Excel does have a lot of bugs and Clippy can appear and that makes me irritated. But not really display abandoned emotion.

All I want is for you people to stop acting like you have a personality disorder or a serious lack of any other genuine interests. I feel definitions (1) and (2) for Aviad but I never felt them for spreadsheets. Or full cost recovery. Or our logo.

Thank you.

When I was your age

2005-10-14T21:29:00.000+02:00

When I was a kid, I wanted to be a game programmer. I didn't know it was programmer at the time, though, until I was 10 or something. But I knew I wanted to make games. To think about them, to work in companies like this or this was (and is, I guess, after Joah) my dream.

I know this job offer is not the same, but it's just as great - And maybe even much more fun. I just hope my friend would apply... I seriously think that he is the best man for the job.

[Blizzard]
[World of Warcraft]

New iMac around

2005-10-14T15:42:00.000+02:00

The new iMac is out, featuring an upgrade of hardware alongside two significant improvement to the home user, I think: Built-in iSight, and the Front Row application. These two two, along with the hardware improvement (Memory speed increase to the DDR2 bus, for example).

Front Row is something similar to Windows Media Center. It joins iPhoto, iTunes and your Movies library, and since iMac comes with a remote, you flip between them from the comfort of your living room sofa.

I can just imagine me and Joah sitting on a sofa (or a sofa pillow on the floor, anyway... No sofa soon) flipping through our photo album or watching a Buffy episode. Sigh... Can't wiat for her to come and live here.

Even though I know she'd never let me get an iMac. *wink*

Fun is in the Air(Port)

2005-10-14T10:27:00.000+02:00

I have recently purchased an AirPort Express to make my house wireless. I found it as a not-that-expensive solution that gives a lot for its price, but I am not here to talk about the AirPort itself.

Opening my house to wireless communication made a few changes, both in concept of connection and in the physical appearance of the house. See, since my cables modem had to be on one side of the house, I couldn't place the computer on the other side (It would require tedious job with wiring the house - I've done that sort of thing in my previous home and it's not pretty). Now that the house is wireless, both my PowerMac and iBook have internet access and they can connect to each other without being near one another, not to mention the tedious work of wires and hubs and the likes. I just hate wires.

But now for the "next project": I have a simpleton PC sitting at home. It's a Pentium 4 2GHz, which can't really compete with the macs so it won't even try to by suggesting to me that I should boot it up. I haven't done so in almost a year now, and I can't see a reason why I should. Or at least, couldn't until recently.

You see, it's a simple math thing: 1 Crap Computer + 1 Wireless card + 2 BFHDs (Something like BFG but for Hard drives), wrap it up with some simple operating system that requires nothing special (even Knopix would do) and you've got yourself a complete set of wireless storage device, just hook it up to a power cord and viola!

Now I only need to find the ingridients... The hard drive on the pentium at the moment is both 80GB And barely working. And if we want to talk about good, reliable PCI cards that do Wireless... Sigh... Not the ones that could be found on Zap, anyway.

Anyway, let's hope this thing works!

Fun is in the Air

2005-10-11T14:57:00.000+02:00

I'm by now a frequent flier on Israir Airlines (company motto: Fun is in the Air), so I'm not impressed that they don't have a frequent flier program.

Israir flights are indeed fun, but perhaps not in the way that Israir intend them to be.

On my last one, from Tel Aviv to London, the pilot announced, in bad English that "Dear Passengers! We are just passing over Brazil".

As I and my confused fellow passengers looked at each other in bafflement, the pilot continued: "Please enjoy zis short film", and commenced a movie entitled "WELCOME TO ISRAEL".

Balagan. Sometimes there just isn't an appropriate word in English.

Crack Squirrels

2005-10-10T17:51:00.000+02:00

Squirrels are dangerous beasts. I met someone at a party who was attacked by one in a park when it jumped on his head. I once saw a squirrel in Highland Park, New Jersey, carrying a complete McDonald's Happy Meal.

So it does not surprise me to find that here in London, squirrels have become crack addicts

I quote from the link for those too lazy to lift their left mouse button finger and click:

"An hour earlier I'd seen a squirrel wandering round the garden, digging in the flowerbeds.
It looked like it knew what it was looking for.
It was ill-looking and its eyes looked bloodshot but it kept on desperately digging.
It was almost as if it was trying to find hidden crack rocks."

A Tourist’s Walk through Central London

2005-10-10T14:59:00.000+02:00

Starting at the Starbucks coffee shop, turn left and walk past the Gap clothing store. On your right you will notice a McDonald’s restaurant, and directly ahead of you there is a Starbucks coffee shop. Passing the Starbucks coffee shop, turn right onto the main road. Ahead of you on the right is a Starbucks coffee shop. Walk past this, and continue along the street, stopping to notice the Angus Steak House. You will see the American tourists inside, eating the overpriced burgers. On your left past the Angus Steak House is an Angus Steak House. Stroll on past this, taking in the sights and sounds of the Starbucks coffee shop on your left and the Starbucks coffee shop on your right. Crossing the road at the Angus Steak House, you notice there is a Café Nero directly in front of you, surrounded on all sides by Starbucks coffee shops. This café will itself be a Starbucks coffee shop soon. Pass by McDonald’s and you will notice an Angus Steak House on the corner. Turn left at this, and finish the walk at the Starbucks coffee shop directly ahead of you.

School disco

2005-10-03T00:24:00.000+03:00

I finally managed to get through to Aviad at Stansted Airport, and confirmed his flight is taking off 6 hours later than expected. Shame.

The nightclub next door is having some sort of 80s remix revival night, which right now includes a weird mix of Madonna's La Isla Bonita. It reminds me of the London School Disco phenomenon , which is a funny night out if you only do it once, and get suitably drunk beforehand in a pub where your gang are the only people wearing sexed up school uniforms. And you're up for a giggling at people who take it too seriously. Like the people pictured on the website.

Lost in translation

2005-10-01T19:00:00.000+03:00

I enjoy learning new languages. I learned Russian for my BA, and when I did my MA I learned some Polish and Ukrainian. I'm now learning (in a very lazy way) Hebrew, but I'm very proud of my advances in the more complex and obscure language of "Aviadish", which is spoken only by Aviad.

Here are some examples of translated sentences from Aviadish into English.

Food and Drink

Aviadish:
"You look very hungry. Look, there's a pizza shop. I think we need to
go to the pizza shop now".

English equivalent:
"I'm hungry and need pizza now"

Aviadish:
"What time is it?"

English equivalent:
"It's lunchtime, where's the nearest pizza shop?"

Entertainment

Aviadish:
"Let play the Pirate game together!"

English equivalent:
"I'm going to play the Pirate game for 8 hours straight and you get to
watch! You may bring me food and drinks at regular intervals".

Technology

Aviadish:
"I just know you're thinking about web objects right now"

English equivalent:
"I will now explain web objects to you. Do you have a pen
and paper handy, because diagrams are involved"

Everyday life

Aviadish:
"I'm tired, and I think I will sit down on this computer chair"

English:
"I will now take over your computer. Resistance is futile. You may bring me food and drink"

TV licencing

2005-09-28T14:31:00.000+03:00

About a year and a half ago, my TV broke. I hardly ever watched the wretched thing anyway, as I didn’t want to pay for cable, and British ‘terrestrial’ TV is crap, focussing on themes of soap operas, TV celebrity chefs, home improvement programmes with celebrities, and reality TV shows where they put a bunch of uninteresting dumb celebrities into a house and film their insanely boring lives 24 hours a day. So I threw my TV away and someone immediately stole it from the rubbish tip.

In the UK, if you possess a TV, you have to pay for a licence. The licence is actually rather expensive, at over a hundred pounds. The TV licensing company are outrageous assholes and do not believe that there can exist people who do not wish to have a television. So they write you scary official letters telling you that they will send you to jail, fine you, send big men round to hunt around your home for that TV you must have hidden. They keep sending the letters and threats even when you tell them you don’t have a TV. Even though they aren’t allowed, by law, to enter your home without a search warrant granted through the courts. They just assume you must be lying and secretly watching "Celebrity Love Island" without a licence.

Here’s my letter to them. Bastards.

Michelle Tunstall
TV Licensing Enforcement Manager

September 28th, 2005

Dear Ms Tunstall

Thank you for your letter dated “September 2005”, and addressed in an official way to “The Legal Occupier”, in which you discuss your concerns that I may be using a television, or television receiving equipment, although your records show that I do not possess a licence.

I am the Legal Occupier, although I am usually known by the name "Joanna". I am writing to confirm that I do not possess a television, and that no type of television receiver whatsoever is being used at this address. I confirm that this statement is true.

I am sure that you will accept my statement as being true; however if you do not I will be very upset. I do not wish to receive a ‘routine visit’ from an ‘inspector’ to verify that I am not being mendacious in my statement above. If you believe that I am, in fact, lying to you, and you wish to send inspectors to my home, please ensure the following criteria are met:

1. Please send me a clear photocopy of the inspector’s official identification badge and documentation at least 3 days prior to the visit, so that I can rest assured that I am being visited by a genuine inspector.

2. Prior to the visit, you will need to send me the inspector’s full name so that I can be sure that the person calling on my home is genuine.

3. I believe you need an official search warrant to enter my home – could you verify that this is correct?

4. I am in full time employment and am not able to be at home to receive the inspector from 8 am through 7 pm. The inspector would need to call either before 8 am or after 7pm on Monday - Thursday.

5. I am not able to receive the visitor to my home on the Jewish Sabbath (after sundown on Fridays through sundown on Saturdays) or on a Jewish holiday.

6. All visitors to my home are required to remove outdoor shoes before entering. Please could you let your inspector know about this.

7. I cannot permit any non-kosher meat into my home. Please can you advise your inspector of this.

8. My apartment contains an attic and I am sure your inspector will wish to search it thoroughly, to ensure that there is no equipment of a televisual nature lurking there. I do not possess a stepladder so you will need to provide one or send a very tall inspector.

I would be grateful if you could kindly complete the tear-off slip below and return it to me in the postage paid envelope that I have provided, so that I can be sure you have received and understood the contents of this letter.

With kind regards

JOANNA
-------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

I (name and job title) _______________________________confirm that I have received Joanna's letter of 28th September 2005 and have read and understood its contents. I confirm that I believe Joanna's statement that she does not possess a television or any type of television receiving equipment in her home to be true and correct. I agree to comply with Joanna's wishes regarding any visit by an inspector to verify the verisimilitude of Joanna's statement. Should Joanna have any queries she may call me on my direct telephone number ____________or contact me via electronic mail on _______________. Signed __________________ on date ___________.

What's cookin'?

2005-09-28T03:22:00.000+03:00

Since Joah and I found out that we both like to cook, we started cooking and buying cooking books like crazy. Must say that for 4 pounds ingredients you get a 15 pounds dish, and it tastes even better!

In any case, I was just cruising (as usual) on the Apple site and I saw this cute application which might help us - It might help you, too! (Even though I'm sure that it being posted on Apple's main download page is better than posting it here, but I'm helping where I can)

Technorati Tags: Food, Mac

First try of Painter = PlayNerd v0.1

2005-09-27T23:30:00.000+03:00

So, fiddling a bit with Painter made this ugly picture from this scanned, hand-drawed one.

Painter
Nerd

On hold

2005-09-26T12:18:00.000+03:00

I'm currently on hold on the Apple Care helpline.

I'm listening to their on hold music, which is country music - the music of pain.

I'm on hold trying to speak to a customer services representative, to ask them about the status of our issue, which is that Aviad ordered a laptop online, which came with a faulty lead. Apple replaced the lead but wanted us to ship back the faulty one. All fine, except the process involves waiting around at home for a courier to come pick up the lead 'at some point between 9 and 5'. Given that we already had to wait for the courier to ship the working lead to us 'at some point between 9 and 5', we're not very happy about this. It would, of course, be extremely difficult for someone with a full time job to take 2 days at home to wait for couriers and given that this is Apple's fault, not Aviad's, it's rather irritating.

What's more irritating is that Apple charged £45 for the lead.

I've managed to get them to waive this charge, but am now waiting on hold to find out what we can do about the courier. You can't speak to customer services directly, you get to speak to some poor tech support guy, who has to check with customer services for you.

There's really got to be an easier way to deal with your customers than this - bad customer service is a really bad British disease.

And now for the next verse of 'So Blue Without You' or whatever the heck this song is.

Doom

2005-09-25T23:23:00.000+03:00

Joah and I bought the game Doom - The Board Game. We bought it mostly because we want to kick each other's asses and shooting little figurines to their death seemed like a good start at that. Now, I've seen Joah playing Doom the Computer Game. I've seen her dodge, swerve and strife to avoid her enemies while shooting back with all power, reaching peaks of joy as she hears a monster going "Aaaarrggh". When we started playing, we chose that I would be the invaders and she would be the marine**. When she played the marine, she decided that a hand-to-hand combat with a giant demon pig would be a good idea.

No way, babah! She got fragged sooner than you could say "Jack Robinson", and you can guess by that who's the happy winner!

** Chose is a too strong word. We actually decided that she would be the invaders, but once she realised it means she has to set the board she delegated that role to yours truly.

Technorati Tags: Board Games

Worldview

2005-09-24T22:48:00.000+03:00

Today, Aviad explained to me in more detail his utopian vision for the future, which, you may be surprised to hear, centres on the supremacy of one operating system over another.

To preserve the suspense, I will not reveal here which operating system Aviad stated would be the "State Operating System" in his brave new world.

However, the Aviad Utopia involves the following:

- humans will realise the truth about life
- immediately upon doing so they will unanimously elect Aviad as King and Supreme Ruler
- they will freely give Aviad all their money
- a certain operating system will be the state operating system
- all other operating systems, particularly a certain operating system will be illegal and users will be offered counselling and rehabilitation in a special centre, which will include, apparently, lectures and role playing games to demonstrate the True Path of Righteous Operating Systems.

Weird. WEIRD.

Mac Drawings

2005-09-24T22:39:00.000+03:00

On my flight here I drew some self-intrepertations of the Mac Logo. Joah will soon draw them up and we'll post more about it when it's ready.

Hope you're as anxious to see it as I am!

iProduct

2005-09-20T17:41:00.000+03:00

Now, I've heard some laughs about iProduct, not to mention heard about the company, but this is too much!

Bluetooth Cellphones

2005-09-20T15:34:00.000+03:00

So I'm in the Apple Store, looking at some features on the Mac. I wanted to check out Bluetooth support for Headsets, and while looking at the Bluetooth options I noticed it supported keyboards, mice, cellphones, headsets, printers.. Well, childishly I clicked every one of them - And when I reached cellphones I think I hit some sort of a Jackpot!

A picture is worth more than a thousand words, but let me just say that I closed the window after taking the photo. I think it doesn't matter much in reality - The phone needs to enable communication as well. But it was amusing just the same.

So far

2005-09-20T12:53:00.000+03:00

So far, Aviad has:

- Rejected British humous (it is horrible), and we had to go to a special Haredi shop and buy some Miki humous.

- Explained the Ethernet, the Internet, and WiFi (with diagrams)

- Remarked that the Apple Store is his "second home", after commenting that he "became an Apple geek". No, really???!!!!

Cute, eh?

Back to England

2005-09-19T11:49:00.000+03:00

It has been a while since I've been to England. 3 months and 14 days since I left last time, to be exact, but who's counting anyway?

What I would like to talk about though is the first coming-back-to-England culinar experience I had: England Homus.

Just trying to describe it brings back a memory of some light brown, scentless, watery and rather tasteless chic-pea salad.

I don't like English food. At first I couldn't understand how Britons could cope with such food and then my grandmother told me a story about the first time she came back to Romania after three years of being in The Land. She told me that when she saw all the people waiting in the bread queues, remembering how my grandfather used to wait in hem and her waiting in the ice queue (as there were no refrigirators), she couldn't believe she used to live like that. But when she lived there her whole life, it seemed like the most reasonable thing to do.

I guess it's the same with the English food. If they just all moved to France or Italy for a year.. Or better yet, to Israel! Have some proper Homus!

I don't think they'd make it though. No proper tea. And by proper tea I mean bitter, nightmare black tea, obviously.

Boxed sets of DVDs

2005-09-18T18:25:00.000+03:00

I just wanted to say how great boxed sets are.

You get the whole series, in a slim volume, with pictures. I like the way the boxed set teases you by telling you a bit about the series on the back. You can watch the episodes in your own time, with no advertisements. You can stop them halfway through and do something else. You never have to watch the credits.

And you can revel in the wonderful sense of completeness you just know you will have when you have watched every single episode

As I write this, Aviad is on the Israir ("Fun is in the Air") flight to London, and I hope he's enjoying the building anticipation of watching Buffy Series Two on DVD.

Wishlist

2005-09-17T17:47:00.000+03:00

Even though I know everyone took a cruise to my Wishlist at Froogle, I decided to post it in the blog itself.

To answer your imminent question of "Why", I would have to say it's mainly for Joah: She just can't avoid my Wishlist any longer! *wink* *wink*

Wishlist

Newest Skype for Mac

2005-09-16T14:55:00.000+03:00

Ahh, my two favorite things (After Joah, of course - Nothing beats The Joah!): Skype and Mac. Skype released a new version for the Mac, namely 1.3.0.8. In addition, they released the cutest Widget (for Tiger), which can help you make a quick dial to a Skype or normal number. If you choose to dial to a normal number, it would instantly tell you the calling rates for this number. Can't say I didn't want that feature to exist for a long time - It's hard going through Skype's rating page!

Anyway, I guess this is time to say: Keep up the good work!

Skype
Macintosh

Free Association

2005-09-15T15:45:00.000+03:00

Sorry about the bad pun.

Anyway, Aviad got me noticing the proliferation of associations that exist here, and this has to be one of the weirder ones.

What's the deal with the tiny naked blonde chick bathing in a cup of tea? Or is it a normal-sized naked blonde chick bathing in a massive cup of tea?

I'm really not sure which is freakier.

Blog Readers

2005-09-15T08:15:00.000+03:00

One of the things I found exciting about a Blog is that I can write a lot of nonsense and some other random people read that and find it amusing (or not).

What I'd like to know is, who are you people? I invite everyone who read this blog, this post, this headline, to post a comment and tell us who you are.

Happy Commenting!

Blog

Important question about Israel and Tea

2005-09-14T14:23:00.000+03:00

How am I going to be able to dunk biscuits in tea if you guys don't have proper tea?

Looking at the bright side, Israel has the best coffee in the world ever, at least from all countries sampled, which include Italy and France.

The Apple Strikes Back

2005-09-14T12:44:00.000+03:00

I have my Mac Mini back!

I went there last night and they refused to give it to me because I didn't have photo id. I also got threatened with physical violence from a charming young man who must have a lot of success with the ladies and can expect a meteoric rise in his career in Burger King, whose uniform he was wearing.

Anyway, I went back this morning, and received the Mac, and they even took the time to test it again for me to double check it was behaving itself.

I couldn't resist having a look at the iPod nanos, which were sitting on their wooden table, looking seductive and cute, like Aviad when he wants me to wash the dishes. And they are so cute! You can put photos on them and they are in colour and they play a couple of songs too.

Apple's service is better than any other company I've experienced in this country.

Apple Store in Israel?

2005-09-14T12:10:00.000+03:00

I just spoke with a guy from Sarig1 and asked him about an iBook. I also mentioned I saw on their site that they were in motion to open an Apple Store in Israel!

Apparantly it won't be as big as the London Regent St. Store, but it will be something special, and in The City, unlike Yeda who are in some offset variation of the center called Rosh HaAyin (my apologies to everyone who live there - I have friends there as well, it's just very far off for a shop!)

Apple
Israel

I can't think of another Apple related pun

2005-09-13T16:04:00.000+03:00

Mini Mac has been repaired!!!!!!!!!!!

I am supposed to take in 2 forms of ID including photo ID which I don't have, to collect him!

But still, this is great.

University

2005-09-13T10:54:00.000+03:00

I registered myself to the courses of the coming Semester. It wasn't too hard, it was easier than say, lifting a fridge all by myself.

I noticed that Google offers a University Search, the Technion included there.

I just wish my university would have a page on the university search as well. Would have made yesterday's hide and seek with information much easier...

University

Using tags

2005-09-12T15:08:00.000+03:00

I've decided that I should use Technorati Tags in the blog. It's my decision alone, even though I ask Joah to do it as well: It's not hard.

Hopefully it would serve two purposes: Bring some order to the posts and get more people seeing the blog!

Tags

Close but no apple.

2005-09-12T14:09:00.000+03:00

I just called the Apple Store, Regent Street for an update on my Mac Mini repair.

This follows last Friday's attempts to find out how it was getting on, attempts that led me to speak to a call centre representative in Mumbai as well as go into the actual store, where someone was able to say that he had seen my Mac Mini in the repair room, but had no more information.

This morning I learned that my Mac Mini has not been repaired, and they haven't even started, and it's going to take two weeks.

Two weeks!!!!!!!!!

Sorry, Aviad, but I'm not that impressed by the service. I've had to chase them for information and have clocked up 30 minutes 'on hold' time so far, and two weeks is too long to repair a Mac Mini.

More associations

2005-09-11T16:21:00.000+03:00

I told Joah today that we could join or create the "Automated Annoying Shift Key Holder For Your
Assistance", after Windows XP did that thing to me again. Thing is I encounter some strange bug where the StickyKeys won't let go - And after a lot of fooling around with the control panel I manage to get it back to normal. I heard it doesn't happen only to me, so I am led to believe I am not just insane.

Joah responded by saying that if there is a TBA, there could be anything, including my futuristic AASKHFY Association.

Also, we both decided to attend this convention. It's better than iCon.

Firefox preventing Shmutz

2005-09-10T11:47:00.000+03:00

Take a look at this:

“Firefox?” The Rabbi stops and thinks for a minute, rubbing his beard. “Ah yes! The one that blocks all the schmutz.”

Hey, Barbie - leave those kids alone

2005-09-09T18:48:00.000+03:00

At the gym the other day, I nearly fell off the running machine when I saw this being advertised on one of the TV screens they have to distract us from the fact that we are, in fact, exercising.

The advert shows two 8 year old girls hanging out playing with Barbie dolls. One of the 8 year old girls asks the other something about what that sophisticated yet cool scent is. Her little pal explains that it’s the Barbie scent, and the advert then segues into showing the little kid in a pink outfit, prancing down a catwalk whilst people look and cheer. She tosses her blonde hair and pouts. We go back to the two kids, and the non-scented child looks at her chum, and at Barbie, in awe.

I never really understood the scent market anyway. OK, it smells nice. So far, so good. But it costs a small fortune, I can’t really tell them apart, and why am I supposed to be motivated to spend so much cash on a fancy bottle, just because Cindy Crawford, or J-Lo, or whoever pouts in soft-glow focus next it in an advert?

But now, here we are, selling this crap to 8 year old kids. Whilst 8 year old boys are having a great time playing computer games, army games and skateboarding, 8 year old girls are supposed to behave like 28 year old women, faffing about with clothes, skin care products, jewellery, and now scent. Do you know how boring that is?

Poor Jane Austen

2005-09-09T15:50:00.000+03:00

The "Jane Austen Industry" has been revitalised by the latest Hollywood adaptation of one of Jane's novels, Pride and Prejudice.

Designed to really appeal to that section of the American and European market that thinks British people take tea and make lighthearted chitchat about the weather, live in castles, and like looking at pictures of the Queen, this charming movie has brought new life into shops selling useless, horrible, armpit-scorchingly embarrassing offerings like this Jane Austen carrier bag tidy.

This, however, is a tourist attraction too far.

Apple got the egg

2005-09-07T23:52:00.000+03:00

After reading Joah's post, I had to check out what Apple had in store. First reports I read said something about a new generation of iPod - And the news from Apple didn't come too late after: iPod Nano. Closing the iPod Mini line (at least it doesn't appear on their site anymore, only on the store), they are now selling this Nano machine. Extremely small, carries 2GB or 4GB of songs and photos. To compare it with iPod Shuffle, I'd say:

It's definitely bigger, but not significantly bigger. You can still carry it on your neck and it's smaller than a cell phone.
It has an LCD screen. You can choose your songs, you have the Click Wheel, life is great.
The LCD is colourful - In that sense, it's a small iPod Photo, it seems to me.
You don't have the cool Shuffle button.
It can't have gizmos plugged in like iTrip, just like the Shuffle can't.
It doesn't plug in directly - It needs a cable, like regular iPods do.

I must say, since I already have an iPod, I can safely say I don't really need this. It's smaller in size but in capacity as well. I'd rather have an iPod Photo.

Apple watching

2005-09-07T18:30:00.000+03:00

The excitement mounts.

More little white and silver boxes will be unveiled soon.

Apple service update

2005-09-05T15:04:00.000+03:00

Well, the poor Mini Mac needs a lot of repairs.

He's (yes, I do anthropomorphise computers) getting a new logic board and a new optical drive.

So far, the customer service is good. I turned up at 09.55, 5 minutes before the store opened, and got booked into the technician schedule. I saw my technician on time. He was able to diagnose Mini Mac ("It's broken") in the store, and he will be repaired in the store as well.

The only bad thing is that it will take about a week...and I have to pay £35 for them to back up my data.

The weird thing is that the cost of the repairs was shown to be MORE than the original cost of the Mini Mac itself. I don't pay for the cost of the repairs as I am under warranty. I asked them why they didn't give me a new Mini Mac if it really cost that much, and they said it's their policy to repair them, even though, as they admitted, they are basically replacing most of the computer anyway.

Now we have to wait and see whether they do take a week, and whether they lose the machine, but at least I have a receipt with a repair number, and I can track that online.

I'm used to pretty dire customer service from the UK, and so far, Apple are doing very well.

And I do want to buy everything in their store.

Apple customer service

2005-09-05T11:22:00.000+03:00

My Mac Mini has broken - it won't reboot and I just get a grey screen of death and despondency. I'm really upset about it.

So, I have had to schlep the thing into work today so I can take it to the Mac shop on Regent Street and try to get them to repair it. I'm lucky enough to work really close by.

I wonder how Apple's customer service will match the really pathetically crap service I got from this company when my PC broke (this involved them refusing to come round to pick it up from my house, then forgetting they had it, then shipping back to me someone else's PC, then refusing to pick that up from my house, then shipping back my PC with the same fault and another fault added, then me threatening them with legal action, etc etc).

I'm going to Apple in 20 minutes and I'm really hoping that they won't put me through this to get my Mac fixed.

Word Verification

2005-09-03T15:01:00.000+03:00

I hate blog marketers. Since this blog has encountered a few (not many, but still enough to get me and Joah upset), I decided to start the Word Verification Service.

So, I am sorry, but you will have to write some letters with every comment. Hope it isn't too inconvinient.

Spaceward Ho!

2005-09-03T14:11:00.000+03:00

It's not a new game, but it is a new version! Spaceward Ho! is a cool, turn based game that brings back gaming to computer games (and unfortunately, takes out graphics from it).

Also, there's a Palm version! (I can hear Joah screaming Nooooo from afar)

Passing time in the office

2005-09-03T13:12:00.000+03:00

Let's face it, office jobs can be dull. Particularly if your colleagues are obsessed with celebrities and/or you have to attend a lot of meetings. But there are several ways that an imaginative worker can alleviate the boredom.

1. Product placement

If you or your colleagues have to make or take a lot of phone calls, you can amuse yourselves by trying to insert a random but amusing word or phrase into as many calls as possible. First you must choose your word with care: it's pointless picking something like 'Thursday' or 'paperclip'.

My personal favourite is 'Pterodactyl' as it takes real skill to get that into a phone call with a market research company or a creative agency.

Famously, we also got ALL OF THE SEVEN DWARVES into one phone call once. Try it - they are Dopey, Grumpy, Doc, Happy, Bashful, Sneezy and Sleepy.

2. Meeting bingo

I love doing this one in management meetings as it really helps make the time pass faster.

First of all you and your colleagues need to make a grid with something like 3 x 5 squares.

Into each of the squares, write a management word such as:

Blue Sky

Heads Up

Helicopter View

Proactive

24/7

Bottom Line

Thinking Outside The Box

Win - Win

Up-Skill

Client Focus

Market Segment

When someone in the meeting mentions one of these meaningless management speke words, you tick off the relevant square on your Meeting Bingo sheet. When all your squares are ticked, you leap to your feet and shout "House!".

3. Random kittens

Kittens are fun and cute. Stick random kitten pictures in random places around your office. You, and others, will come across these pictures at random times, e.g. when hiding in the toilets or staring at the coffee machine, or showing your new administrator how to work the photocopier. You will see the kitten and feel happy and warm.

Alternatively, you could, I don't know, do some work or something.

Oh My iGod

2005-09-03T10:46:00.000+03:00

Coming from this blog I found BiblePod and BiblePlayer. If it ain't horrible enough, I decided to quote as well: "Free download. Jesus was downloaded so that we can be uploaded".

A Weird Sense of Ending

2005-09-03T10:16:00.000+03:00

Even though my contract is far from being over (I still have another year for that to happen), I get the weird sense of "The end is nigh", and I don't mean armaggedon.

It's a weird sense. On one hand, I do want the project to succeed and will do what it takes to see it through it's completion. On the other, I feel my personal life, the life I am building with Joey, is taking a place in my life stream I didn't know of before.

If I would take a rewind back to a couple of years ago, when I first got to the department and started this contract, nothing was more important than "the work". I really did everything and gave everything. I still do - But what is different? It's hard to say. It's a feeling. It's remembering to make that phone call to Issta. It's not diving into work too much without checking my email and send a funny mail or a response to Joey while she's working. It's much more than that, and I would stop now because I feel like I'm writing a "Love is.." book.

Sigh... And I guess I also finally starting to feel the need to get out of the contract, something I haven't felt for the years I was in it.

Timeless Essential Indulgence

2005-09-02T15:30:00.000+03:00

I just saw these three words in an advertisement on Regent Street: Timeless Essential Indulgence. Timeless - it's eternal, existing outside of time. Essential - basic, indispensible. Indulgence - the gratification of whims and desires OR the remission by the Pope of punishment in purgatory.

So: The basic, indispensible, perpetual gratification of whims and desires.

Wow.

What, I thought, can this be advertising? What (apart from Aviad) could perpetually gratify my most basic whims and desires?

Could this shop be selling Aviad?

No. It was selling liquid handwash. Actually, it claimed to be selling a 'lifestyle' based on the consumption of liquid handwash.

I hate meaningless, over the top advertising. It steals meaning from language.

Things we have learned

2005-08-30T08:58:00.000+03:00

Here are some things I learned on my long weekend in Israel:

1. Roaches are huge. They are still scary when dead.
2. Kingdom of Pork has a second branch in Ramat Gan.
3. Aviad's mum is an amazing cook (well, we already knew that).
4. Sorry, Interior Ministry, but there are foreign workers in Israel - we know because we saw a shop called MENTAL: FOREIGN WORKERS, FILIPINOS AND ROMANIANS. We will get a photo on the next trip.
5. The Ben Gurion Airport sticker colour schemes for travellers is top secret.
6. Parakeets can be dangerous.
7. People can be amazing. On my charter flight they only gave out blankets to children. I was freezing. The little Hasidic kid next to me pretended she didn't have a blanket, got an extra one and gave it to me. These kids also fed me chocolates and fixed my earphones. Thanks, guys.
8. Jennifer Lopez is a terrible actress and Monster in Law is a terrible film.
9. Don't compete with Aviad on a computer game. He will play it until he wins. Then he will taunt you with his high score forever.
10. Shoko speaks Russian.
11. Kibbutz Galuyot is not a kibbutz.
12. When camping in the wilderness, all you need to survive is Bamba.

The Island

2005-08-29T10:46:00.000+03:00

We went to see "The Island" yesterday, to find a movie starting out with a great concept and finishing as another lame second rate action movie.

If you haven't seen the movie, do not read further - This rant Is a bit of a spoiler.

The movie starts out with a society living a weird, forced, monitored life in a big cylindrical establishment: When the character first wakes up he is told that he is having bad dreams again, his urine is tested when he goes to the loo, causing his daily meal be sans meat. During the day he will see the establishment's head doctor, who will try to understand the character's dream.

Also, all the people are living their lives waiting to win The Lottery, a ticket to The Island - A utopia made up for them to wait for so they would live a happy, quiet life trying to achieve passage to. The world is destryoed and The Island is the only place surviving. Everyone want to win the lottery, they are being forced to think that from "birth". Social contact is minimal and is discouraged, inspite of what the heads of the establishment would say: "Proximity" is against the law.

Eventually, the character and the viewer discover that the whole establishment is just a facade for a life insurance company of the worst (or the best) kind: The grow human replicas, clones, of the insured people so should something happen to them (infected liver, heart problems, etc) they would get a transplant from their best donor: Themselves. Obviously the insured are unaware to the fact their donors live a life before being cut to shreds in order to supply them with body parts, so when the character finally escapes this establishment with a female clone, they try to find their origin and tell them of what is really going on.

This is where the movie goes terribly wrong: Instead of having some clever, phylosophical endeavour, they go off in a wild run to a random location, to find themselves in the most common of action movie scenes: First the horrible bar scene looking for clues, then the cars chasing a truck with heavy things falling off it scene, followed by a flight scene, on to a car chase scene, to the obvious sex scene, and then to the commando scene where they come back to the establishment, two people who lived for merely 4 years at most, and stop a whole army sitting there to defend the place. If that wasn't enough, the movie gave us a final "the-bad-guy-is-having-second-thoughts" scene where the one chasing them all along, killing (in numbers) around half the population of Israel on his and their way, decides to help them out at the last minute and they all save the day.

Oh, I almost forgot the scene where he meets his origin, and they have a fight, and there is a guy pointing a gun at them, and they argue about who is the origin. Classic.

Sigh... I just wish movies could start AND end with a good idea...

Addictive

2005-08-28T11:02:00.000+03:00

I hate getting addicted to games. It started with Digger (By the way, did you ever see this?), moved on to some other classics, then to die off with three great games.

Now, years after (some would say "years after buying a Mac and having no game to play," though I wouldn't agree..) I have found a new addiction in the form of Village Sim!

And Joah is very pleased about it, too.

Human Zoo

2005-08-27T17:37:00.000+03:00

One of the things I am missing this weekend, thankfully, by being here in sunny Israel instead of miserable rainy London is this horror.

Not content with reality TV, the British are now putting 'real live humans' on show in an actual zoo. Presumably this means that people get to watch them pace up and down, 'answer calls of nature', swing on ropes and have sex in public. Sounds like any central London tourist zone on an average Saturday night to me.

Slightly more weird than this is London Zoo's other unique event, Gay Sunday. Thanks, but I don't think I will 'meet the monkeys'.

NetNewsWire for Mac

2005-08-25T12:02:00.000+03:00

This is a rather nice little news syndication program for Mac.

For those of us, like me, who don't like spending money, there is a freeware version, NetNewsWire Lite.

Just some stuff about some things

2005-08-23T21:25:00.000+03:00

1. The word "sexy" should only ever be used when referring to something related to sex. To the person who today used this adjective when referring to a bespoke membership database programmed in Oracle - stop it.

2. Every Tube carriage at rush hour will always contain a man in a cheap suit and "personality tie" who will push past women to get to the one vacant seat. This man will inevitably give women a look as if to say "I don't have to give up my seat for you just because you are a woman, ha ha that's where feminism got you". This type of man is an asshole.

3. People who rush to get on the Tube just as the doors are closing, thereby standing on me, and pushing me out of the way: LOOK AT THE BLOODY ELECTRONIC BOARD THING, THERE IS ANOTHER TUBE IN JUST ONE MINUTE'S TIME.

4. Every London bus has a gaggle of teenagers playing terrible "RnB" music, demonstrating their ringtones and saying "Innit like, yeah, innit, laters innit".

5. Colleagues, if you can actually see me from your desk, don't email me. Speak. It's faster, and doesn't make me want to cry.

Thanks.

Phantom Car

2005-08-20T16:50:00.000+03:00

Microsoft just filed a patent for an application that would replace how-to-reach-X instructions.

Instead of studying an on-screen map or listening to spoken instructions, the system lets a driver pursue a cartoon car projected onto the windscreen in front of them. The navigation system checks a car’s location and calculates a route in the usual way, but the driver follows the ghost car as if it were the leader of a convoy.

Can't say I don't want that for my car.

Secrets of Life: Revealed

2005-08-19T22:11:00.000+03:00

If you're like me (and I know I am), you're constantly pondering life's deep and meaningful questions. Today, I had to face such issues as what colour T shirt to wear, what to eat for lunch, what drink to get from the drinks machine at work, and why the Universe was created.

So it's good to know that help is at hand from a resource that has an answer to absolutely everything from why drivers of 4x4 cars park like assholes, to the difference between the Trance and House genres of popular music.

So seek the path to enlightenment, friends.

Notes from the Disengagement

2005-08-19T17:07:00.000+03:00

I didn't give much of a preview to the last post, so I would like to correct it and write something here. Call it a postview, if you like.

The first week of actual disengagement was an intense one. Even though it was definitely not characterised by violent acts, it was absolutely filled with intense feelings. One day, standing near a Jeep, I realised I had a lot to say about what's going on here, and to as many people as possible. I took out the notebook I always carry around, asked for a pen from a friend, and starting writing. I found myself filling 4 pages just then, and another 4 got filled up quickly in the next long break we had. I can write much more and I will, and for now I translate some of it and put it up on the blog.

I hope it will shed some new light on the events during the disengagement. I am sure there are many blogs or forums showing things like this, and I am glad. People ought to write what they feel and see in this disengagement, from both sides.

I have to thank Joah, more than once and probably forever, for being like an anchor to me in a lot of cases even without knowing she is. Her love is an amazing one, and so is my love for her.

Disengagement Posts

Crying Man

A gentle grown man with an American accent is clinging himself against the wall crying; He doesn't want to leave his house.

Disengagement

No need to hide it. Some people are going to the disengagement. Some do not.

Crying Man

2005-08-19T16:33:00.000+03:00

A gentle grown man with an American accent is clinging himself against the wall crying; He doesn't want to leave his house - Is it really his house? The house is empty except for a cornflex box, religious books and a suitcase already packed. There is nothing else to do, he is being told. The disengagement, the evacuation, it will be done. It's better to go quietly so that no-one would get hurt.

He stays up. Doesn't move. Partially whispering, probably trying to shout but being too drained from the crying to do so, he sings the now-common phrase "A jew does not drive out another jew". We heard that phrase so many times during training, we screamed these slogans at each other during training, when simulating the settlers. After the first week of training was over, it seemed logical to me that a good portion of what the training did was make us less sensitive to these words; Words that caused us all embarrasment, sadness, anger and sometimes arose humouristic remarks from us; This done so we could do this task in a slightly easier mind.

Obviously, it all sinks in eventually; And looking at this man crying, holding a book - most likely a Bible - I felt the tears building up in my throat. He was gently put down to a sitting position, from there four people held him from his arms and legs, making sure he can't fall and that the way they're holding him was as gentle as possible while still managing to hold his body weight. It wasn't the first time I felt like crying in the disengagement process and unfortunately, it won't be the last.

An open letter to the UK coffee buying public

2005-08-19T11:13:00.000+03:00

Dear UK coffee buying public

When you are purchasing your skinny latte or single cappuccino or frapadapamapaccino from Starbucks, the correct way to do so is as follows:

"Please can I have a latte?"

And not:

"Can I get a latte?"

You are NOT IN AMERICA. You are NOT AMERICAN. It just demonstrates to everyone else that you think imitating the speech of characters on American situation comedies is cool. You are NOT ONE OF THE CAST OF "FRIENDS".

Also, please can you stop saying that you are "doing lunch" and just "have lunch" or "eat lunch" like regular people? "Doing lunch" just makes you sound like a prat.

Yours sincerely

Joanna

Giants

2005-08-18T23:46:00.000+03:00

When I lived in Russia, my apartment, like every other apartment, had visits from cockroaches. These nasty little beasts are practically indestructible, as I found out after one survived me stamping on it, bashing it repeatedly with a rolled up newspaper, and trying to drown it. However, the answer to the roach problem was solved by the purchase of a couple of Roach Motels - strapline being 'They Check In: But They Don't Check Out'.

So, when Aviad told me that there were roaches in the bathroom, I suggested that a couple of Motels should do the trick. I was really quite surprised when he didn't know what a Roach Motel was...

But then, I found out why. On visiting the bathroom, I noticed a huge creature was already in there, waving its pseudopodia about. I apologised to it for rudely invading its privacy and told Aviad that there was a rare form of giant dung beetle in the loo and could he come and help lift it.

It wasn't a dung beetle.

It was a freakishly large roach. The size of a small kitten. No wonder there are no Roach Motels - they would need to be the size of real hotels, and the roaches would demand pay per view movies, room service, internet access and a pool.