I took next week off, so I have 10 days of rest ahead of me.

Unofficially, though, since there is a planned power outage at the mall where my office is, it means that tomorrow morning I will have to log on to work, uncomment all the cron jobs and manually run all the jobs that were supposed to run at night. So not much vacation there. :(

The weather in Israel - sunny, with chances of sunnier. Today we had 24ºC, and it's supposed to rise gradually to 28º in Saturday. Hello? This is January, people. It's supposed to be what, in the teens!

I'm a bit worried about Proxy, my cat. She's been vomiting every day for a week or so. Occasional mishaps are nothing to be worried about, but when it happens every day... Yesterday was a really bad day for that with at least 4 times that I counted. I did recently change one of the food brands they eat (I always give them two kinds) because my cat food supplier ran out of Science Plan. So yesterday I decided to throw away what remained of the new brand and give them only Proplan - which they are used to - until I get my hands on Science Plan again. In the morning I found yet another "surprise", but now that I came from work there was nothing from today so I am hoping she is better, but I'll keep an eye on her, and if this continues, I'll go to the vet's tomorrow. The cat herself doesn't seem to be feeling too bad - she is playful and jumps all the way up the fridge, so I'm hoping it's a good sign.

My calligraphy teacher decided to start me on a new technique for the new year... I've been studying "kaisho" until now, which is the modern printing style. Now he started me on "gyousho" - the cursive style, which is more flowing and all the strokes are connected to each other. There is an even more cursive style called "sousho" which is totally incomprehensible. Anyway, it's a real challenge since you have to execute "gyousho" in a flowing manner, rather than the careful, stroke-by-stroke execution of "kaisho".



Anyway, he still expects me to do homework on four-letter expressions in kaisho in addition to the homework in the new technique... aaaaa!

My sister has been telling me that ever since her daughter joined the military, their relationship has improved significantly. Apparently, before that, she used to study very hard, enclosed in her room with her classmates. When she finished school, she used to work long shifts, and then go hang with her friends. She never had much patience for her mother. Now that she's in the military, when she gets her weekends off, all she wants to do is just snuggle at home and be coddled, and share her new experiences. I told my sister she should write a thank-you letter to the Chief of Staff. :)

My scooter is back and in good shape. Yay for cheap mobility. On Monday I nearly blew a fuse in my brain, I was so frustrated and annoyed at the mechanics and the taxi driver that took me to my calligraphy lesson. I hardly calmed down enough to be able to put brush to paper.

Tomorrow is a busy day. In addition to the bits of work I have to do, there is:

• Picking up a parcel from the post office (probably the Japanese books I ordered).
• Buying some seeds and nuts for the basketball game. The games are on now that New Year's is gone.
• Possibly the vet (hope not).
• Usual grocery shopping.
• Try to get Science Plan from some other pet shop. I also need filters for the drinking fountain.
• If I get to Dizengoff Center, also try to pick up a gift for my German friend who has a birthday soon.
• Japanese online chat scheduled for 16:00.
• Either hosting or riding over to Z's to watch the game.

I don't know why I fear this vaccine so much. I have had vaccines of worse stuff. Evidently, I am not the only one. But I took it, and will take Yael ASAP (not before I am sure I got no side effects, no need for two sick people).

Originally posted on wildernesscat.vox.com

Portland Oregon by Loretta Lynn
Well Portland Oregon and sloe gin fizz
If that ain't love then tell me what is
Well I lost my heart it didn't take no time
But that ain't all. I lost my mind in Oregon

In a booth in the corner with the lights down low
I was movin' in fast she was takin' it slow
Well I looked at him and caught him lookin' at me
I knew right then we were playin' free in Oregon

Next day we knew last night got drunk
But we loved enough for the both of us
In the morning when the night had sobered up
It was much too late for the both of us in Oregon

Well sloe gin fizz works might fast
When you drink it by the pitcher and not by the glass
Hey bartender before you close
Pour us one more drink and a pitcher to go

And a pitcher to go [repeat]

Just felt like posting that.

Well, that was annoying. I'll just do it as a list, then.

Went to see 'alvin and the chipmunks: the squeakquel'. Because I asked the boys how they wanted to spend the last day of the holiday.

Went to library.

Had lunch at Debenhams.

Insert standard tirade about how ex is mean and lazy so I have to buy lots of the stuff that we agreed he would buy.

School-readiness: I have uniforms and that's all. No PE kits, no book bags. This is presumably ex's fault, somehow. Twat. School needs much money for school dinners and cookery club and creative writing club.

Both boys nervous to go back - Silvester's gone off his friend and doesn't know who he'll play with. Meanwhile, Lenny is scared of his teacher. He thinks she doesn't like him. I think she's just very young and keen to assert her authority. She shouts at everybody, not just him. All the boys think she hates them.

First, I wrote a long chatty account of my day. It vanished.

Then, I wrote a tirade about how annoying that was. That vanished too.

Let's see what happens now.

a little light awesome.
interview.
1970.

What is the point in remembering death? I prefer remembering life. Let us perform a ceremony for the deceased on their birthdays - the date we used to make them happy in, when they were alive. The date we have memorised for years, least we forget a birthday.

Death is here to stay, it does not need us to remind it of those it had taken from us. It is the fragile memories of life which need us.

Let us not go to the cemetery, but convene at the deceased's house. Why should a cold stone, bought after the person's death, be the center of our prayers? Let us gather some of their belongings, and say words in their memory there, at their home, where they lived, loved and laughed.

Let us remember life.

Buckwheat Zydeco's version of Iko Iko is playing right now. I love Buckwheat Zydeco.
Five things to know about me, just stuff I feel like blogging about...
1. Of the two major sodas, I'm a Coke drinker. Not Diet Coke or off products of the Coke brand. I like a Mt. Dew once in awhile and if I have to have a Diet soda, I prefer diet Pepsi. If I drink one Coke a day, that's a lot. However, I will almost never refuse a Coke given to me.
2. I drink soy milk for various reasons. However, I am NOT lactose intolerant, I'm not a 'milk hater', soy is my choice.
3. I've been a quasi vegetarian, I may go back or I may learn to hunt for my food, or I may just live off Taco Bell. Who knows what the day will bring.
4. I don't like stand up comedians, don't know why, I just don't. Maybe if I did, I would have ended up at Second City.
5. I am not a planned person, I don't have a daily regime, I don't eat the same things every day. I like variety, therefore, at times it is difficult for me to make decisions about what I want and sometimes I can be a pain in the ass about it.
Sundry things about me: I have a weird thing about the telephone, some days I hate talking on it, others I can't get off it, plus, I'm not a fan of actually calling people, it's weird. I love food, weird foreign food, really incredibly spicy food. I'm not sure if I used the word sundry correctly but I like the word, so there it is.
What about you? If you're just passing by, let me know one thing about you!
Cheers!
Rue

I've been using emacs-jabber.el for a while now and it works fine. Here are two small tweaks I've made after updating to the latest Git version:

I find the header with the key-binding descriptions to be a waste of space and decidedly un-emacs-ish, so:

  (setq jabber-roster-show-bindings nil)

Also, I have a few friends who have unreasonably long status texts, so I've added a modified `jabber-fix-status' to my .emacs which truncates status texts to 36 characters plus an ellipsis:

(eval-after-load "jabber-roster"
  '(defun jabber-fix-status (status)
     "Make status strings more readable"
     (when status
       (when (string-match "\n+$" status)
	 (setq status (replace-match "" t t status)))
       (when jabber-remove-newlines
	 (while (string-match "\n" status)
	   (setq status (replace-match " " t t status))))
       (if (> (length status) 40)
	   (concat (substring status 0 36) " ...")
	 status))))

Here is a PDF of a paper about the so-called "Vacuum Catastrophe". The paper is meant for undergraduates which means it is relatively simple.

No, they didn't accept me. The guy who does welding jobs is not working today (all Russians take January 1st off), and anyway they are only accepting vital fixes. That's the importer's central shop. So I tried a smaller shop near home. They tried to help, but they don't keep parts on location, the main supplier is doing an inventory count, and two minor suppliers don't have a stand in stock. "Come on Sunday, we'll see".

I got an appointment at the central shop for Monday. I'll have to settle for leaning the scooter against something in the meantime, or using the small kickstand and praying to the god of scooters that nobody bumps into the scooter, because the kickstand is barely sufficient to hold its weight.

The broken stand hangs a bit too close to the back wheel for me to feel comfortable riding around anyway, so I just went straight to the non-kosher supermarket and bought some essentials, riding through the streets instead of the freeway, just so that if anything happens, I'd be thrown off the scooter at 50km/h rather than 90km/h. :-S

Nothing happened, and I'm back home safe, and I'm not going to ride anywhere this weekend - though I was hoping to go watch "Avatar". It'll have to wait.

When I do things well, it is a tribute to my father.
Permanently fixing a clever, cheap toy.
Teaching my child the accurate answer.

When I do it my way, I still remember my father.
Letting my child choose her own way.
Controlling my temper.

As I went down from the office to go home and released my scooter from its stand, something went bad in the stand, and the scooter sort of collapsed into my hands (luckily I was holding it firmly). I can't see exactly what's wrong with it, but it's misaligned and doesn't hold the thing anymore. I had it parked overnight leaning against a tree, and planned to go to the shop first thing in the morning today to get it fixed.

Only... I needed to go past breakfast for that. And so I put my usual two eggs on the stove to boil, and sat down to have my tea. After a while I went to the kitchen to check on my eggs, and saw that the flame went off. Darn, the gas can is empty. Wore a fleece thingy over my pajamas, and went down to close the can and open the other one[*]. So I try to twist the valve on the full can to open it, and the cheap plastic thing, which was in the sun for I don't know how many year, crumbles in my fingers. Yay. I try again using the edge of my fleece coat to hold the broken remains of the valve, to no avail. And it's better like that - because if it opened, I probably wouldn't be able to close it again, and that's not safe.

Grrr. One empty can, and one full one with a broken valve. No gas. I called the gas company, and the clerk promised me they will come fix it as soon as possible today. But that basically means I'm stuck here at home waiting for them to come, and I can't get my scooter fixed.

Now I'm trying to see if I can get the eggs boiled in the toaster oven. I don't think it will work, though.

Edit: the eggs cooked nicely, to my surprise. The gas technician came at about 1 pm and fixed the valve handle by the simple expedient of stealing a similar one off a neighbor's empty can (belonging to the same company). Ugh. He would have lifted the one on my empty can but they had incompatible valves. I just hope that it was really an empty can so the neighbor doesn't get stuck when he tries to exchange the cans. I suppose the technician is within his rights, because technically, all the cans belong to the gas company, and you only buy the gas inside them, but it's still not nice.

And I did get to the scooter shop only to find that this being December 31st, they are closed for an inventory count. I hope they open tomorrow morning or I'm screwed.




*I don't know how gas works in other countries. In Israel, where you don't have a central gas connection, you have two canisters connected in a T. You have one open and one closed. When one empties, you close it, open the other one, and call the gas company to replace the empty one. So you always have enough gas to get you going and they come in at their leisure and replace your canister, leaving you the receipt under the hood.

Took boys to the shiny new Ashmolean Museum today. I've been before, a few weeks ago. I was a bit more impressed this time, just because we got to see more of the new extension. Also, they've finished typing up the labels now - last time I went, some of the exhibits still had hand-written tags on them. They'd obviously been in a mass rush to open on time.

Saw all the things you always see at the Ashmolean: the mummy, the grave goods, the classical statues, the samurai swords, antique violins, byzantine icons, etc, etc. Saw them the way the boys do - at speed. I always think they're not paying attention, but they obviously are, because they were chatting away about stuff they saw at the other museum we went to, months ago, and which we also sailed through at high speed.

Even so, what with taking a break for lunch, and then another break for cake, it was a nice way for us to spend a few hours. I don't enjoy New Year, and I'm glad they don't realise it's meant to be a special time. They're thinking ahead to Orthodox Christmas, which I do enjoy.

I'm spending New Year's Eve and New Year's Day working. Around the edges, I'll be in hibernation, reading, watching my amazing new TV, and generally enjoying my Christmas presents.

Trackstanding in a Tel Aviv puddle while waiting for the lights to change. Who said fixies didn’t have concrete advantages?

A telemarketer call.
- Hello this is Meirav from Yedioth Ahronot. There are some special deals I'd like to offer you today. Are you a reader of our paper?
- I don't know how to read.
- Sorry??
- I don't know how to read.
- Okay, thank you, good bye. *click*
That was quick.

Originally posted on wildernesscat.vox.com

Karl Fogel has announced that GNU/Emacs development has now moved to Bazaar. I installed the recommened Bazaar 2+, punched in:

$ bzr branch http://bzr.savannah.gnu.org/r/emacs/trunk/

...and two hours later got:

Branched 99205 revision(s).


I've been following the discussions on emacs-devel@gnu.org and found it interesting to watch how a large free software project moves from one version control system to another.