Stuff from life lately

* The company I work in has an evening out in a restaurant for the workers. Me and another girl are doing shift at the call center. I ask for food delivery and, as drinks to go with the food, we get diet coke....because all women are obsessed with their weight and want to drink diet...

* Signed up to the university gym with the BF to help BF get into shape together. I hate the atmosphere there, so full of people high on adrenalin and obsessed with how firm the other's butt is compared to theirs and how more defined their abs are than the abs of the guy on the next treadmill. However, said gym has a swimming pull, which is hella-cool.

* Mom and Dad had their birthday this week, dad's is tomorrow and mom's was this monday. Happy birthday parents!

* Still no sign of an end to the lecturers' strike and now there's both a deadline beyond which the semester (and the year, probably) will be canceled and a threat from the universities to get the lecturers back in the classrooms via court warrents.

* Staring at many hyrax pictures, I'm beginning to see two fur patterns repeating themselves. Whether I'm bothered with gracing my proff and project guide with this is questionable since I'm not sure they'll pay attention or take me seriously.

* Attention all LJ friends, you can sign in with your username when commenting on this blog ^_^

Fun Link Time!

Yup yup, long time not fun link, huh? Well, it's back again and better than ever!

1. 24 Bizarre Creatures of the Deep, with stunning pictures of some of nature's most brilliant and bizarre monsters.

2. Black hole destroys a small galaxy, Death Star style, with a stunning picture to boot.
(at this point Scarlett sat herself in front of the screen and is making typing a tab difficult to do...)

3. Porn for girls, by girls. I can't say I agree with everything, but it is stuff that'd make us melt XD.

4. Geekerama aplenty; Five awesome sci-fi inventions and why they'd actually suck is they ever came to existence. I know, I know, I always wanted a holodeck myself, but the guy has some good points there...

5. Stress bakes your brain, but how can you un-bake your brain? OK, so there are a couple of medicinal tips here that smell somewhat of a commercial but the other tips look very good, try it.

6. Let's play Buffy on phantom power and have a look at modern day's biggest power vampires. Look at the list and have a good think about the electrical appliances you leave plugged to heir sockets when you don't need them.

7. Ants are good for camouflage as well as for food, claims a new study about ant-snatching assassin bugs who use a backpack of their prey to avoid being noticed by vision-guided predators. This reminds me of one of Dick Winters' Battle of the Bulge stories, though the anal prick couldn't see the dark humor in using dead enemy soldier bodies to cover his foxhole. Ah well, when you're that full of yourself others just can't be properly comprehended.

8. The origin of whales; a small deer-like mamal, latest study claims. Now let's take a break to wrap out brains around the concept of those huge flippers starting off as tiny dainty matchstick legs deer have...

9. Not my cattle of fish quite just yet, but still quite an interesting mystery pondered here; why pregnant women don't tip over! To be honest, I never ever thought about that. The next obvious mystery is, I suppose, why bosomly-enhanced porn stars don't tip over...

10. We'd all be very sad if we couldn't laugh at the germans, right? So here's Hitler on Facebook (the place I refuse to join due to over-popularity) I find the family album particularly amusing.

11. And speaking of World War 2, the BBC have raised a truly stunning project - The People's War. It is an archive of personal testimonies from almost every angle of that war from POWs to citizens of all sides to soldiers to partizan's. It is an amazing gift to future generations and is a goldmine to history-infested writers like me with a need to research.

12. The Great War in color! This small article contains some beautiful pictures of a world long gone and a war that should have never happened. These are really, really stunning pices.

That's it for today, hope you enjoyed the links!

D'jya like dags?

Watched Snatch; fucking brilliant film! Funny, flowing, insane, Vinnie Jones, jews, gypsies, you name it. However wrote the script was downright insane. When I'll have a dog of my own I'll call it Dag. Dj'ya like dags? ^_~

Also watched The Simpsons Movie which was also hilarious. I can see why they didn't let people know about the real plot of the movie since it's ever so snappy and awesome.

Great movies, both extremely recommended, folks.

And to top it off, here are a couple of new Sam & Scarlett pictures to kill you with teh cute

A saturday morning's shift boredom

I am smarter than 98.33% of the rest of the world.
Dumb Test now bow before me

Found this amusing:

"To the citizens of the United States of America...


In the light of your failure to elect a competent President of the USA and thus to govern yourselves, we hereby give notice of the revocation of your independence, effective today.

Her Sovereign Majesty Queen Elizabeth II will resume monarchical duties over all states, commonwealths and other territories.

Except Utah, which she does not fancy.

Your new Prime Minister (The Right Honourable Gordon Brown MP, for the 97.85% of you who have until now been unaware that there is a world outside your borders) will appoint a Minister for America without the need for further elections.

The House of Representatives and the Senate will be disbanded.

A questionnaire will be circulated next year to determine whether any of you noticed. To aid in the transition to a British Crown Dependency, the following rules are introduced with immediate effect:

1. You should look up "revocation" in the Oxford English Dictionary. Then look up "aluminium." Check the pronunciation guide. You will be amazed at just how wrongly you have been pronouncing it.

The letter 'U' will be reinstated in words such as 'favour' and 'neighbour'; skipping the letter 'U' is nothing more than laziness on your part. Likewise, you will learn to spell 'doughnut' without skipping half the letters.

You will end your love affair with the letter 'Z' (pronounced 'zed' not 'zee') and the suffix "ize" will be replaced by the suffix "ise."

You will learn that the suffix 'burgh' is pronounced 'burra' e.g. Edinburgh. You are welcome to re-spell Pittsburgh as 'Pittsberg' if you can't cope with correct pronunciation.

Generally, you should raise your vocabulary to acceptable levels. Look up “vocabulary." Using the same thirty seven words interspersed with filler noises such as "uhh", "like", and "you know" is an unacceptable and inefficient form of communication.

Look up "interspersed."

There will be no more 'bleeps' in the Jerry Springer show. If you're not old enough to cope with bad language then you shouldn't have chat shows. When you learn to develop your vocabulary, then you won't have to use bad language as often.

2. There is no such thing as "US English." We will let Microsoft know on your behalf. The Microsoft spell-checker will be adjusted to take account of the reinstated letter 'u' and the elimination of "-ize."

3. You should learn to distinguish the English and Australian accents. It really isn't that hard. English accents are not limited to cockney, upper-class twit or Mancunian (Daphne in Frasier).

You will also have to learn how to understand regional accents --- Scottish dramas such as "Taggart" will no longer be broadcast with subtitles.

While we're talking about regions, you must learn that there is no such place as Devonshire in England. The name of the county is "Devon." If you persist in calling it Devonshire, all American States will become "shires" e.g. Texasshire, Floridashire, Louisianashire.

4. Hollywood will be required occasionally to cast English actors as the good guys. Hollywood will be required to cast English actors to play English characters.

British sit-coms such as "Men Behaving Badly" or "Red Dwarf" will not be re-cast and watered down for a wishy-washy American audience who can't cope with the humour of occasional political incorrectness. Popular British films such as the Italian Job and the Wicker Man should never be remade.

5. You should relearn your original national anthem, "God Save The Queen", but only after fully carrying out task 1. We would not want you to get confused and give up half way through.

6. You should stop playing American "football." There are other types of football such as Rugby, Aussie Rules & Gaelic football. However proper football - which will no longer be known as soccer, is the best known, most loved and most popular. What you refer to as American "football" is not a very good game.

The 2.15% of you who are aware that there is a world outside your borders may have noticed that no one else plays "American" football. You will no longer be allowed to play it, and should instead play proper football.

Initially, it would be best if you played with the girls. It is a difficult game. Those of you brave enough will, in time, be allowed to play rugby (which is similar to American "football", but does not involve stopping for a rest every twenty seconds or wearing full kevlar body armour like nancies).

We are hoping to get together at least a US Rugby sevens side by 2008.

You should stop playing baseball. It is not reasonable to host an event called the 'World Series' for a game which is not played outside of North America. Since only 2.15% of you are aware that there is a world beyond your borders, your error is understandable. Instead of baseball, you will be allowed to play a girls' game called "rounders," which is baseball without fancy team strip, oversized gloves, collector cards or hotdogs.

7. You will no longer be allowed to own or carry guns. You will no longer be allowed to own or carry anything more dangerous in public than a vegetable peeler. Because we don't believe you are sensible enough to handle potentially dangerous items, you will require a permit if you wish to carry a vegetable peeler in public.

8. The 4th of July is no longer a public holiday. The 2nd of November will be a new national holiday, but only in Britain. It will be called "Indecisive Day."

9. All American cars are hereby banned. They are crap, and it is for your own good. When we show you German cars, you will understand what we mean.

All road intersections will be replaced with roundabouts. You will start driving on the left with immediate effect. At the same time, you will go metric with immediate effect and without the benefit of conversion tables. Roundabouts and metrication will help you understand the British sense of humour.

10. You will learn to make real chips. Those things you call 'French fries' are not real chips. Fries aren't even French, they are Belgian though 97.85% of you (including the guy who discovered fries while in Europe) are not aware of a country called Belgium. Those things you insist on calling potato chips are properly called "crisps." Real chips are thick cut and fried in animal fat. The traditional accompaniment to chips is beer which should be served warm and flat.

Waitresses will be trained to be more aggressive with customers.

11. As a sign of penance 5 grams of sea salt per cup will be added to all tea made within the Commonwealth of Massachusetts, this quantity to be doubled for tea made within the city of Boston itself.

12. The cold tasteless stuff you insist on calling "beer" is not actually beer at all, it is lager . From November 1st only proper British Bitter will be referred to as "beer," and European brews of known and accepted provenance will be referred to as "Lager." The substances formerly known as "American Beer" will henceforth be referred to as "Near-Frozen Gnat's Urine," with the exception of the product of the American Budweiser company whose product will be referred to as "Weak Near-Frozen Gnat's Urine." This will allow true Budweiser (as manufactured for the last 1000 years in the Czech Republic) to be sold without risk of confusion.

13. From the 10th of November the UK will harmonise petrol (or "gasoline," as you will be permitted to keep calling it until the 1st of April) prices with the former USA. The UK will harmonise its prices to those of the former USA and the Former USA will, in return, adopt UK petrol prices (roughly $6/US gallon -- get used to it).

14. You will learn to resolve personal issues without using guns, lawyers or therapists. The fact that you need so many lawyers and therapists shows that you're not adult enough to be independent. Guns should only be handled by adults. If you're not adult enough to sort things out without suing someone or speaking to a therapist, then you're not grown up enough to handle a gun.

15. Please tell us who killed JFK. It's been driving us crazy.

16. Tax collectors from Her Majesty's Government will be with you shortly to ensure the acquisition of all revenues due (backdated to 1776).

Thank you for your co-operation.


GOD SAVE THE QUEEN."

Updates...

Work's going a little easier on me this week, though I took two extra shifts beyond what was planned. These decent work weeks might be a little wearing but as long as the strike's going they can't harm too. much.

Went to see In The Valley of Elah which is a downright brilliant movie which I recommend you all to watch. It was very life-like and completely kitsch-less save for the last scene which I'll spare you the spoiling of, Tommy Lee Jones and Susan Sarandon act so naturally and realistically you can't see it's 'Tommy Lee Jones and Susan Sarandon' anymore, but instead you see their actual characters which is a bit tricky once an actor is famous enough, and Charlize Theron is brilliant in a zero-sexuality-full-character role. Go watch it, it's a very good movie.

Things with the (now official) boyfriend (*squee*) are going smoothly and lovely but I'll spare you the gushy stuff.

However I will share with you some very romantic new pics of Sam and Scarlett bonding:

Scarlett: What? I'm not squishing him...


Scarlett: He likes it, really...


Sam: Uh....mooooom


Sam: Mooooooooom!!


Awww, they're kissing (or trying to bite each other's face off, lord knows)


"And you, my dear, are no lady..."


Cat smear I


Cat smear II


End of pic spam ^_^

*sleep deprived*

Had six shifts this week, the last of which is coming to an end in an hour and a half. Said shift has been a just me for twelve hours!! *sigh* I brought my project stuff but as it turns out we only have Excelle VIEWER at work and twelve potential hours of working on my project went down the toilet. Luckily, I've found a stash of Absolutely Fabulous season 1 and a bit of 2 to keep me company through the night, sweetie.
The worst thing about the shift is that, as I usspect, some sort of mold's setteled into the kitchen somewhere, or something's in a very bad form in the fridge, and there's an aweful smell about the whole place, which reached where I'm sitting by the monitors and all. I had to spend most of the shift with two windows open to the early winter's freezing night air just so I won't be stuck with that aweful stench and be sick all over the computer.

However, I just might have found a really nice deacent guy I really like, who really likes me. Just might, don't want to jinx it, so I'll tell you more when there's more to tell >.<

Oooh, and HAPPY HANNUKAH!!

Last but not lease; The full Beach Cleaning Day photo stock.

Picture post!

Finally, I got pictures from two events I had last month; a birthday party for on of my university gang's member, and a beach cleaning operation my faculty's student council organized.

Birthday Party: The gang member, who's name is also Meirav, took us to a dance-bar called The Budha at the closed old Tel Aviv dock. The whole university gang was there, which is cool because we don't get to see each other much these days what with the strike still going on and everybody in their own job.

First off, the gang:

From right to left; birthday girl Meirav, Neta, moi, Guy, Dana and Shai.

And this is Shiran who was taking the group picture:


Olga, who was in the little ladies' room at the time:


More group pictures:

Meirav, Guy, Shay and Olga


Olga, Neta and Moi


Neta, moi and Dana (isn't she hot?)

I'll stop briefing you about the names already and just post the pictures...








Being silly with chips...




When you're drunk enough, you do stuff like this:

We really aught to be studying engineering....so much talent...

Being a responsible adult, I was not drinking the whole evening because I gave Dana and Shiran a lift to the club and back *pats self* good girl. Managed to avoid smoking, too, after 6 months of no smoking, so yay for me.

Beach cleaning: The faculty of life science (zoology, microbiology, virology, botanics, ecology, biotechnology and bioinformatics) being the hub of tree hugging dorks (accept those who continue their studies and become mouse dissectors in Block-10-like labs...) our two representatives at the student council decided to organize a beach cleaning operation in Jaffa at a small beach. Indeed, not many came, but those who did come had a great fun. It's the beginning of bird migrating season and we kept seeing arrowheads and films of cormorants overhead coming like waves. Also, the beach was very quiet and serene like only a beach at a winter's late afternoon can be. I must warn you that I look awful in these pictures so you'll just have to pretend I have a paper bag on my head (bad hair day) Pictures:

We had these big plastic bags and ran around the beach picking trash up, playing "He who finds the first bong/used condom gets a free HIV test on behalf of the faculty" and many other fun games.


And then, me and a couple of guys got into wheel digging, removing dumped wheels from the beach and boy was that a messy, hard work. My back and arms were insanely cramped the next day. Here are some wheel piccies:


Ehn!


Digging them up


Dragging them away


Taking them piece by piece


And then I found some sea cucumbers (a few Holothuria tubulosa)!! Went over to brag them off to the rest of the biology nerds

We put them back right where we found them afterwards, we did.

The whole gang


The day's howl at sunset




And that's the end of the picture post!

Book Report

Finished reading Alan Levy's Nazi Hunter.
All in all a good book; it was balanced, well written, informative and composed. It's a very good book if you're just starting up on the subject of the holocaust, or as a book to inform someone who only vaguely heard about it and give them a better, deeper knowledge of what happened where and when. It's not THE most informative book but the subject it covers, it covers with enough good details to not leave a job half assed.
Something did bother me, though, and that was the fact that - the way it's written in the english version I read it in - it's aimed completely and quite obviously to an American audience. Every unit of measurement or currency is translated to inches/pounds/dollars, and many times there are little footnote marks to often unimportant comments on other bland subjects. I suppose the Levy's ideal scenario in buidling this book is some history-ignorant American person's eye caught on the cover's shocking colors and inviting title, tempted to buy it and from its pages gather the very critical knowledge on the works of war crimes, cruelty, and justice as Weisenthal himself would love to have done and have done when he was alive.
However, if you're like me and already read quite a few things about the holocaust, all the little footnotes and pointless translations to a currency and measurement system which is not mine, is very, very distracting and often annoying.
It's a good book, an educational book and I have learned a lot from it and enjoyed reading it, I won't say I didn't enjoy it, but it could do some work.

Next up: Marion Zimmer Bradley's The Mists of Avalon.

*dead from the cute*

Two of last post's problems are being solved, on the third I was working while writing the post, so not all's too bad.
BUT FOR NOW LET US PUT THAT BEHIND US!!

Sam was snoozing on the parents' bed today and since it was a rare moment in which he sleeps on a furniture I took the liberty to implant Scarlett near him as well. This is what became of the operation:



And a picture:

Henh...

In case you were wondering (or in case you even noticed...) I disappeared for a while due to a very hectic week. I've had a shift every day, including night shifts, and my god did it wreck havoc on my life. At least I got the weekend off, which was great.
I've been very down lately and it took me a while to understand why. Sat with myself and thought about it, I realized I had one of the toughest years of my life:

My first year in university was a flop no matter how much I try to cheer myself up thinking it's because of all the math-physics-chemistry I've had this year and how relatively well I did in the more animal-centered courses; I'd believe myself with these cheers if only I didn't know I let myself down in properly sitting my ass to study and cramm properly.

The project, which started on very high and mighty airs, is a flop I hope not a lot of people in my academic year will take any notice of, it's so unprofessional and lame. At least here I don't have anything to blame myself for, but rather the people I'm working with. Still, it's annoying.

My love life's been one crash after another, mostly because of my hubris, one certain condescending asshole and my lack of skills in anything that has to do with flirting, managing myself around sane normal males or choosing sane normal males as mates.

I finished my three-year-written fic and am now fumbling with editing it at a rather disappointing rate and if I knew my beta bothered reading this blog I wouldn't say I think our friendship is lacking now that our once mutual fandom is not on my interest list and the burden of how little we have in common is finally taking a toll on how quickly she does me the favor of betaing my fics. It's not that she's a bad person or that I'm angry with her but I do feel a certain loosening of the delicate voluntary bond between a writer and a beta which we used to have. I don't blame her; I'm not paying her and she owes me nothing so I feel like the fact that something's creaking in the way we work together must come from me because she's not the kind of person to demand something for a favor she does, she's great like that.

I'm 24 and I'm still living with the parents. This is going to change, now that I have a seriously profiting job and I will be seriously looking for a place to move to as soon as I have a safe layer of financial fat in my bank account (which I assume will be in a couple of months or so), but it doesn't change the strain it put on me so far or the stupidity of my behavior which lead to this situation after three years of having jobs between my army service's end and the start of my university studies.

I guess the only thing I did manage to do properly this year was to quit smoking. Way to go, me.

Then there's Clio's death. I knew Clio since she came out of her mother's belly; I raised her, I loved her, I grew to know her as she is alone with her mother and Speedy both went their own ways. Losing Clio was far more than I allowed myself or others know, for a long time. Sure, Scarlett and Sam are wonderful, adorable little treasures, but Clio has a special place in my heart.

I'm not the type to despair and I never let a problem bother me for too long without thinking up ways of solving it and seeing beyond it. That doesn't mean I can't feel bad about said problem...

I wanted to tell you about the beach cleaning operation I went to this thursday, but I didn't have the right strength for it. Also, I don't have the pictures from it yet, so...

The basic reason why we were supposed to wait with bringing Scarlett home to Sam was because she was supposed to get neutered as well as vaccinated. On Wednesday, Scarlett's breeder told us the vet couldn't operate on a kitten who got her vaccination package less than a month ago. And so, we waited no more; we signed a paper that we'll neuter Scarlett by the time she's eight months old, and took her home!



Her first night she spent in my room, curled up in front of my face and waking me up with purrs and demands whenever I dared flip in my bed...she even hurled herself sideways on my face once to get attention. Then she played excavators in her cat sand...I didn't get much sleep that night.



Isn't she a beauty? She's a lot more daring than Sam and jumps all over places (which Sam still can't, I have no idea why...) though whenever she find herself in a room alone she starts meowing miserably. Perhaps she's just used to always being in a room with people and other cats; she grew up with her brother, mother, father, half-brother and another breeding female. Oh well

Sam, curled up and sleeping


Now, despite careful planning, we let them loose together yesturday which didn't prove at all as a desaster. Yesturday the ineraction between the two mostly included Sam stalking Scarlett in a hunting fashion until Scarlett would turn around, give him a glare, and bristle a bit, which made him calm down bashfully.



Today she surprised him with a nose kiss, which he later returned (awwwww >.<) but they're still very sheepish and bashful around each other. They're very much like a couple of forth graders with an "ewwwwww, girls/boys are yucky!" but they're warming up to each other. Scarlett's usually the initiator because she has experience with boys, while the Sam knows very little about how to handle the ladies (save for letting them have their ways with everything).

Meeting in a sunbeam






Two cats, again, we have two cats! That's such a joy >.<


The lovely lady

Attack!!

Got my birthday present from mah sistuh in the mail today:

Not including the fluffy cat in a bowl, I got three Terry Pratchetts (Mort, Colors of Magic and Reaper Man), a set of stickers made by sis with sis' art, a scarf my sis made (it smells like your house, sis, it does!), two chocolate bars made of endangered animals helping to save endangered animals and fair trade and a lump of white chocolate with strawberry cream and another lump of black chocolate inside *drools* nice, no? Thankie sis!

Also this morning was extra energetic for Mr Sam Cat who went zooming in and out of his toy paper bags (don't ask me why, he just loves them) so I made a video of the little devil:

Books and general disgust with human kind

Spend the night shift watching video recorded lectures in Animal Behavior course from last year. Fascinating stuff to the bone, especially since the prof makes sure to present, for each theory, a proof of existence in the animal kingdom, and then a contradicting proof. Very nice.
Then again, he also spoke about how reflexes were checked and studied with animals who got their brains cut off from their spines. I've heard of very few worse things done to conscious, thinking, sensing living organisms, and those were mostly done in concentration camps and inquisition basements. Our infinite curiosity, which we so praise and admire and boast about, is so immorally fed it's disgusting. And then we go about saying killer whales tossing about a seal pup, or a lion preforming infanticide is horrible cruelty. We really should have stayed on treetops if that's what out big fat cortex's gotten us doing.

On a lighter note, I finished Hogfather. Quite, quite delightful. Even more delightful than I thought. If I'll speak any more praises on what I liked about the book I'd be spoiling you all, and that's not very nice. I'll only say that after a few Discworld books read, the whole mental picture of the world comes together as events mentioned are linked together from the various books and a real sense of a history to this imaginative world appears. The one following behind quite nicely on that department is J.R.R Tolkien, but when he tells of his world's history it's a lot like the olden times' history lessons with too many jumbeled names in your head and bits of history told too quickly or too briefly. Don't get me wrong, I love how solid J.R.R's world feels due to its creator's hard work, and the sense of a boring history lesson only makes it more linked to real life experiences, but Pratchett's lighthearted humor is for some reason a better anchor (in my mind anyway) to reality in my mind.

Am now reading Alan Levy's Nazi Hunter about Simon Wiesenthal, who's a bit of a hero of mine.

Also, In eight days we're getting out little Scarlett home, *squee*

Urban Nature

Went on my sportive walk around and saw two tawny owls standing on high wires apart from each other, watching over the fields stretching to the east of the town where I live. I was so surprised and pleased to see the first one I stared it into flying away and the other flew away to run down a small rodent, which I'm afraid my somewhat fangirl-ish staring frightened off of it. I did hear something screeching miserably, but the owl flew away with empty claws. Kinda makes me feel guilty, but it's been raining pretty hard all day today so the rodents are all out of their borrows looking for new ones and I'm sure the owl found another meal. Still, it was pretty fucking awesome seeing it run down that poor little rodent.

Birthday post, Sam silliness and movie reviews

Happy Birthday, Nicole!! Good luck with that exam, huh *nudge nudge*

A couple of days ago Sam was folding himself feline-ly in the glass bowl mom used to use for decoration on the living room coffee table (and which is now a Sam bed) but was somehow unable to obtain his balance properly so he fell. The little guy was in a smeared state so he just spilled onto the table, folding himself up only when me and dad laughed enough. Here is the documentation of said event:



Starting to gather his self dignity back


"C'mon, you guys, leave me alone, will ye?"


A perfectly elegant "'Gat a problem?"


Watched:
1. Eastern Promises - Nice movie, though the plot's logical existence hangs on too thin a thread for my comfort. I liked how the movie insisted on showing everything as realistic as possible from slit throats to newborn babies and a fight scene with Viggo Mortensen completely nude (which was, I admit, distracting, like all nudity). The best thing was how the hidden world of the Russian mafia and its symbols were not views in a kind of tick-the-box way of characters naming every tattoo on each other to give explenations; the only character who explained tattoos was a coroner and explained only two tattoo's meanings, for the audience to understand that tattoos do mean something. There was no obvious effort by the script writer to say "Look! We did research 8D". Very not-Hollywood, this film, which was very refreshing.
2. Stardust - Can't say that many praises on this film as I did for the previous one, sadly. The plot was very interesting, despite the already well chewed subject of fairytales with princesses, magical creatures and witches, there were small details you just had to love, like the literally blue blooded princes or the lightning catchers. The film didn't lack its bursts of creativity and cleverness. The dialogs, however, could have used some more working on and some plot twists were just too abrupt, as if the plot's been crammed into too short a film. I mean, come on, if audiences tolerated films as long as Lord of the Rings, they can tolerate a slightly longer but better told plot, especially when the plot's much thicker and vital than LoRT's. The most unpleasant thing, however, were the final showdown with the witch (which I will not ruin but it's sufficed to say it could have ended wonderfully without her death) and Captain Shakespear's character; the stereotypical description of his behavior linked to his preference (trying not to spoil you guys) is insulting, really. Too Hollywood, I say, on this movie.

Last but not least. I've learned of a new animal today! The Binturong or bearcat. Look at that animal! Isn't it quaint?

It's Fun Link Time!!

Fun Link Time, the time of gathering of fun links to share:

1. Featherlight-skulled dino had a vacuum-like mouth of tiny teeth, and paper-thin vertebras! Grazing on grass and horsetails like modern day cows, study says. Whenever I see these reanimations of dinos I have to wonder where the artists who drew them took the colors from. I mean, once I saw on Walking with the Dinosoars about this dino who flushes blood to bony plates on his back to startle predators. I mean....c'mon, guys, how do you know that? How can you tell, from a bunch of dried bones, that this is what they'd do against predators?

2. Crazy scientists invent robotic sheepdog for cockroaches. Just kidding, it's a tiny robot wrapped in roach-smelling paper (FTW? and where can I get me somma dat) that's used for studying swarm and herd behavior. The guys say they're not interested in their future conclusion's implications on human behavior, that's the spirit, boys!

3. Marc van Roosmalen's amazing work in the Amazon deep reveals new mamal species yet unseen before. The guy actuaqlly found a new big cat, if that's not mindboggling I don't know what is, it's just amazing, isn't it? That man's book is SO on my next birthday's wishlist!

4. New record broken on cat-worshipping as humans drives to pick up traveling cat by car each morning. Ladies and gentlemen, we can get any more sucker-y than this when it comes to cats, can we? When it comes to new tricks cats teach us to do, it seems that the sky's the limit.

5. In memory of my beloved Mr Poopy Pants who has definitely falled victim to Sam's curiosity and bottomless apetite (mom caught him nibbling on Poopy's plant leafes so he's definitely the culprit) I give you some Photogenic Caterpillars and other lovelies of the Thai forests. Poor Poopy, I'll never forget you *sobs*

6. The city of New Delhi is facing a new enemy as thousands of monkeys overrun it, injuring citizens and overtaking buildings. The monkeys are sacred to the hindus and therefore any violent acts to fight this problem is out of the question, gatta love that too, huh. However, as the monkeys start meddling with local politics stuff gets serious. Good luck, Indian friends!

7. Beautiful jellyfish pictures taken in the Osaka aquarium and some in the open sea. Such simple animals, the jellyfish, yet they're so splendid <3

8. A lovely description in art of the human body as a machine. I particularly love the brain bit and the brain stem.

9. Ever thought your language has cool phrases? Well, think again, because some languages have the coolest phrases out there, check it out!

That's all for today!

Birthdays and books (and a rant)

It's happy birthday time for my good, wonderful, amazing, lovely and talented friend from Bohemia, Kiki, happy birthday, girl!

EDIT: my father advised me to remove the ranting bit about the research. Let us just say that one day I'll have my own lab and will be able to freely do what I wish to do. Ta, dad.

I meant to write a post about books, so, yeah. Books!
Finished Winston Churchill's The Second World War's first volume; The Gathering Storm. Lovely book, not only because of Churchill's writing style but also because of the way the translators to hebrew made an effort to upp the language level as much as possible. This being a book printed around the 50s here (the whole series belongs, actually, to my uncle who got it for his bar mitzva and never laid hand on it even once IMO) it means the language is already archaic. The result is a highly stylish and delightful to read extremely detailed account of the war.
I have to admit I didn't read all of it; Churchill spent the first few months of the war commanding the navy, which he loved with all his heart, and which I care very, very little of. I skipped a chapter or two, but the most I read quite happily.

Am now reading Hogfather which is the usual Pratchett delight; same old writing tricks pulled but ever new and entertaining. Talk about it when I'm done ^_^

BTW, I haven't seen Mr Poopy Pants in a couple of days now and I suspect Sam's got a paw in this; he'll hunt flies to such extent the little thing'd eat them dead off the floor, let alone a caterpillar...

Birthday post

Happy birthday to me, happy birthday to me, happy birthday to meeeeeeeeeeee *takes deep breath* happy birthday to me!

How did I celebrate the birthday? Well, last night I worked the night shift at the call center (where I work, BTW, helping people with leased company cars do all kinds of stuff to repair their stupidity's result with their vehicle). My old high school friend, Aran, came around with his laptop to make the night go faster as we played Bubble Bobble and first addition Prince of Persia until the morning.

Then, as I came home, me and the parents drove our ass to some half-remote new neighborhood in Jerusalem to go see Sam's new girlfriend, Scarlett The Lovely. I have to say it amazes me how clever these particular creatures are; both her and her brother had such piercing, investigating, looks in their eyes as we pranced around them (we're a cat-worshiping family - we prance around our devotion's subjects), like they were trying to understand what we were saying to them.
So, I promised pictures and I deliver!

Here's the lady held by her human mom;


And here's dad with his catch, Scarlet the Lady;


And now for a report of the most important part of birthdays; getting things from other people! This birthday the theme was on books and here's a full list:

From parents:
* Fight Club by Chuck Palahniuk
* Portnoy's Complaint by Philip Roth
* The Book Thief by Markus Zusak
* The Mists of Avalon by Marion Zimmer Bradley
* Witches Abroad & Hogfather by Terry Pratchett
* Gone with the Wind by Margaret Mitchell
* Day Watch & Twilight Watch by Sergey Lukyanenko

From Cait, the lovely beta:
* Ouran High School Host Club vol.1 by Bisco Hatori
* Hellsing vol. 8 by Kouta Hirano
* An End of Education - Redefining the Values of School - by Neil Postman

From myself to I (sad, I know):
* Following Alice - A Journey to the World of Lewis Carrol - by Haim Shapira
* Setting the Desert on Fire by James Barr
* History, Memory and Propaganda - The Historical Discipline at the Beginning of the 21st Century - by Yoav Gelber
* The Golden Warrior by the delightful-to-read Lawrence James
* Homosexuality & Civilization by Louis Crompton

AND there are more coming from the sister soon ^_^ all in all, quite a good catch, I'd say.

And now I think I'll get back to gaining back some sleeping hours...