Books

Amber = Slytherin?

Holy crap

The nerdiest guy I know apparently has gotten himself a smart, funny and beautiful girlfriend. I'll be verifying this info shortly. If it's valid, I'll... I'll... congratulate him and go be reclusive and cry, probably. Plans for new year's celebrations are shaping up. Could turn out to be good. Boss wants a wiki on the intranet. Boss will get wiki. :)

Geha bus stop bombed

Reading international media, one may think Tel-Aviv is everything Israeli between Haifa and Jerusalem. Our Petach-Tiqwan bus stop is (was?) not in Tel-Aviv. Anyway, I was supposed to be there at the time, but I stayed late in the office (reading illegally smuggled fan fic, no less) so I was still there when my cell-phone almost got DDoS'd by my relatives. Took the train home (traffic was completely blocked for several hours) and am happily sipping tea and blogging. Anyway, don't worry about me - I'm fine. I can't get blown up anyway, because I'm a non-combatant, you see. :)

Ten years old and still kicks butt

Have downloaded the windows version of Lemmings today. Did not have so much fun since age eleven when was first introduced to this magnificent game.

Books

This is a bit as a continuation of the military theme from last posting. If the military theme bothers you (ideologically or otherwise) you are welcome to say so, through comments or email. I have recently scratched another item off my to-read list (just the tip of the iceberg, I'm afraid): Robert A. Heinlein's Starship Troopers. I won't be reviewing it myself (as usual. I'm a perfectionist and as such won't publish or even do something if I'm not sure it will be good (or, to be painfully honest, best). Of course, only practice makes perfect, so it's a catch-22 and a possibly damning personally flaw.) but just point you to the first reader review on Amazon. I recommend this book to all audiences, not only adolescent males. listening to: "The Ballad of Rodger Young".

Sewing

... one's chevrons is a trickier business than getting them, I find out. To clarify: in the IDF, unlike any other military force I know of, rank is given by seniority, not by merit. After so-and-so months/years in one rank, you are automatically promoted. This makes for much fun in human resource planning, since each outfit must at all times have a precisely calculated number of people of each commissioned rank (enlisted men and women are a bit easier to juggle, though professionals are not: getting an extra coder is almost as hard as getting an extra lieutenant. Having an extra major is a catastrophe (you must either transfer or discharge one of the others). Thankfully, the insanity stops there: lieutenant-colonel and higher are merit-only ranks). This all means that I hadn't actually achieved anything but surviving long enough, and taking the fact that the most dangerous thing that ever happens in my office is a computer crash into consideration that isn't all that much. More trivia: they aren't exactly "chevrons" either, because they're straight straps. The V-shaped thingies are used for shoulder-worn insignia for NCO ranks, meaning I have about four more years till I get those (and they come with prettier uniforms).

One year

...down, more than four and a half years to go. Oh well, I signed it myself, can't blame anyone. And it's not like I can honestly say I'd prefer any other job (though it's nowhere near perfect). My manager asked me today, the third time since we've met, what I think about management (well, he asked about offer school, but it's implied). My answer gets more negative with each try. I guess they're probing so I won't be able to say later that I didn't have the chance to say I'd wanted to. Being taken seriously and given more autonomy, authority and credit, together with the chance to see the big picture and talk on the same level with the important people, being able to make some important decisions - I think I'd like that. But the price - the exponential growth in headache, the tiresome interpersonal stuff. Responsibility for a software project - I think that I can shoulder, but God, I don't want to be some poor soul's CO. Time does of course change people, so maybe two years from now I might think I'm ready to try (that's when these decisions are made), but somehow I think I'll always prefer the technical side. And being an NCO is not such a big stigma outside of the service, I hear (or is that just wishful thinking?). Ah well, I guess I should make a decent corporal before I'm thinking about trying for lieutenant. On a completely different topic: Babylon5 r0x.

GPF

So I wrote JavaScript to generate URLs for all the gifs and feed them directly to my download manager 'coz I can't afford the DT-edition (found here: 1, 2, 3 and at the usual places). I look at the time stamps and weep. I'm not only stereotypical, but also unoriginal, borderline passé. :-( But you've go to admit — they are really good. This one is just classic.

So

Does anybody know what A, Z and FireloX are up to? They said they wanted time to think after the book. It's been close to six months. Any news? the FA side of the fandom are in "business as usual", it seems.

LotR trilogy tickets ran out fast

.. in Tel Aviv. Bummer, as I really wanted to go and it fitted very nicely into my schedule. I'll just have to watch the first two movies at home before going to see the third, I guess. I'm still working on grasping our corporate culture. Also I'm doing a crash course in OS/390 and HR management policies. It's both intriguing and frustrating all at once. Does the comments system work? Do I have an audience besides my other personalities? Would you like to speed up the design editor's development? Do you think it will never be complete? Am I too reclusive? Are we all too tired to talk, or do we have nothing to talk about?

Lobotomy box

Me and my boss were comparing P2P queues today. Mine had Jennifer Garner, his - Jessica Alba. He also downloads Stargate SG-1 and Witchblade though he conceded to Babylon5 being far superior to Star Trek. Anyway, I was all in for defending Alias against Dark Angel and just now ran a google image search to gather some evidence to distribute to the jury tomorrow through abuse or corporate intranet. The next thing I did was tell myself "Self, 123966 geeks cannot be wrong" and promptly added the Season 1 Dark Angel DVD rip to the queue.