Not Quite There Yet...

silent maniac laughter

2008-07-18T14:43:00.002+03:00

* The semester, and with it my second year in uni, is over. I have 2/3s of a BA. This also means test season is upon me. Next week's going to be fun:
Sunday + Monday + Tuesday: Invert lab trip
Wednesday: A revision class before the test in evolution, at noone.
Thursday: a 9 hour long revision lab in invert lab
Friday: Evolution test

Fun stuff, isn't it?

* Finished Churchill's third volume in The Second World War series and here's the review:

The Grand Alliance by Winston S. Churchill

My review

rating: 5 of 5 stars
In this volume, as evens take a faster pace so does the writing. Churchil was never a bad writer, but in the previous volume he didn't quite find the right balance between putting in every memo he ever wrote and every small background history detail.

Events are well told in good details and the sense of interest and intensivity is kep very nicely.

So far, I'm very pleased with this series.

View all my reviews.

Am now reading Stephen King's The Dark Half

Rats!

2008-07-15T11:42:00.004+03:00

*I've adopted two rats from the store; Rizzo which I've fallen for and grown attatched to and Lieby (short for Liebgott, very Art Spiegelman) and they're now staying with university gang member, Guy, until I'll have a place of my own to keep.

I've spoilt them rotten; they've got top food, dog food, mineral and vitamin stone, fresh fruits and vegetables (courtsy of Guy) and a granola honey stick.

The move was a little rough on poor Lieby but he's doing great now and Rizzo's his good old curious, energetic self ^_^

Here are piccies:

Rats on me (this is Rizzo)

Don't look at my face like that's how I usually am; I've had very little sleep that night....

Guy, the keeper of rats

The cage

And the travel ball they've got too

Rizzo (front) and Lieby (back) exploring

Lieby!!

And just because he's (still) a handsome devil, here's Jack again

* Test season's looming by and I'm in denial ^_^ before the horror comes down on me like god's wrath, there's a three-day trip from invert lab to cut some more into cramming time. Fun fun.

* Sam-Sam is a year old today!! For his birhtday he got a mouse jumpy toy and a bag of nip-treats which Scarlett eats mostly and he probably avoids after a strange experience; he ate a few and found himself on the kitchen cupboard, something none of us imagined his plump body could achieve....

Anyways, here's a video featuring Sam and Scarlett in which Sam shows his two favorite nasty tricks to win a fight; sitting on Scarlett and biting her...well, you'll see...

Happy birthday, bunny!!

Boring books, too much work and one eye-candy

2008-07-06T20:19:00.002+03:00

* I'm not reading Lewis Carroll anymore, I'm fed up with it. Here's why:

Complete Illustrated Lewis Carroll by Lewis Carroll

My review

rating: 3 of 5 stars
I gave up in the middle of the Bruno and Sylvie saga. The Alice in Wonderland stories were fun and interesting to read but by the saga the nonsense and the bizzare attraction to young girls who are a symbol of prefection was getting on my nerves. Call me a cold-hearted person but there's only so much strangely-placed nonsese I can tolerate and if there's too much child-adoration and not enough plot I give up.

Don't bother with the whole collection; Alice's stories are quite enough to enjoy Carroll.

View all my reviews.

Currently reading: Winston Churchill's The Second World War series volume 3; The Grand Alliance

* Too much work @____@

* Now there's a fine young man for you:

Hyena project = complete!

2008-07-04T12:52:00.003+03:00

* Yup, it's over and done with. I've still statistical analysis to do but the testing is OVER. So far it seems the ice lolly's winning on the what's favorite.

* There's a new rat friend; Rizzo Rat and he's a cute and smart little fellow. He used to curl up in my pockets like Nathan but he's grown used to the movement and much prefers sitting on my shoulder facing forward like a pirate's parrot or sitting atop of my head. The only down side is that he pees freely...fun, not!

* Haven't had the time to tell you but I've finished Karl Marx and here's the review:

Karl Marx by Francis Wheen

My review

rating: 5 of 5 stars
Wheen's wonderfully written book illustraits, with colors as vivis as possible, the life and works of Karl Marx, warts and all; from blood-thirsty arguments with opponents, to medical details of the various many ailments Marx suffered from to the horrificly true and not-so-nice predictions of Europe's political future including the world wars and what brought them about.

Karl Marx is an educating idol for anyone who wants to think on their own, to conclude only what their mind understand by constantly checking for contradictions and 'plot holes' in grand theories around them and Wheen describes wonderfully both how Marx came about this and what it brought him.

The book is well written, light to read and enjoyable. The style is humorist and serious at the same time, with a keen eye on the various misdeeds various politically-enclined historians twisted or wrongly presented Marx history and work, which is always nice to see.

A very good book, I highly recommend it.

View all my reviews.

Am now reading Complete Illustrated Lewis Carroll

* Due to the fact that people in cat forums are stupid enough to think a troll would go all the way to invent a story describing my cat research, or that I'm the MI5 (people are really, honestly stupid) I've decided to turn to places where I can proove my identity more easily, so I've opened a FaceBook account and here it is.

* I'm officially have been working at the store for a month and now I'm getting precenteges for my sales, which is another bonus in an already bonus-packed work place ^_^

* Piccies!!

This is Anat, she volenteers at the zoology garden, helping Shimon (the hyena's keeper) with his work. Those two were such great help to me in the project, they were simply marvelous. I wrote them each a thank you letter and got them a box of chocolates for their bother and help.

The hyena enjoying the fishy ice lolly. It took him a while to wrap his brains around the concept of the ice lolly, and he didn't like the fish at all!

Egret tree at the zoology garden

The hyena cheating; he was supposed to keep the bone ine cage so that I'll know if he prefers the bone so much that he'd go into the cage for it while there's the yard and all its treasures to relish, but he took the bone out to the yard as you can see

Yum yum yum, Ice Lolly Version 2.0; chicks and fruits and the hyena is loving it!

Having a dust bath

The wolves dug a tunnle (*commence The Great Escape jokes now*) in the yard and it's the hyena's pleasure the destroy it from time to time, as you can see here; he's pulling out a log they stuck in it...

A happy hyena; having a short dip

One of the wolves

Sniffing the fat stain a dead sheep the wolves got left behind

And rolling in it....

The yard

Moi in the final toy-free observation today, a picture taken by my dad who climbed on the roof with me for 'security reasons' (Mr. Safety's orders *rolls eyes*)

The garden

A herd of gazelles

And that's it for today!!

Mommy's little helper

2008-06-21T13:28:00.003+03:00

* This week was a bit of a stress; five days of work which meant the only time I was home was in the morning and then after 23:00...not fun. But the pay will be good (and I need it!)

* Speaking of pay, lovely Ebay ended up demanding almost half the sum I earned on my first sale, after a long list of various fees, half of which aren't mentioned. Cute people, like hell I'm using their services again without a proper reserve price, the assholes.

* The Deaths: Legend is on hiatose due to problems with the beta-ing, but mostly due to the nonexisting free time I have. I'll keep writing various bits of it but it'll take me a while to find a proper beta and once I found them, to trust them again to properly do the jobs they took upon them or last for long without kicking up drama to cover laziness (the first being the fault of the latest now ex-beta and the last being the fault of my first ex-beta). See, Allan, no battle axes ^_^

* This morning Scarlett was very nice, helping mom fold the laundry. Mind you, the term "help" is very flexible in the feline world. I'll let you be the judge:

"Here, mom, take this, oh my clawas are in it? So sorry *pulls hard*"

Slowely creeping atop the pile to block any more kidnapping of items:

N00, THEY BE STEALIN' MAH LONDRI!!

Perhaps rolling around and looking cute'll do the trick...

She's just an angel

"leave me alone already"

"I'm sleeeeeeepiiiiiiing!!"

Yeah, right.

* Store stuffs: Meet Nathan, as I think he aught to be named:

Nathan was one of our kept-for-snake-food rats in the store along with several other rats. Last week there were only him and two other rats left and since I already introduced myself to him I held him again and he snuggled up in my overall's chest pocket to doze off, pop out and scare/delight costumers and pee in the pocket. ANYWAYS, halfway through the shift a man comes and wants two rats for his snake. The bastard insisted I'd get him the rats even after he saw what I had in my pocket and had to be prized off by the other worker in the store, bless his soul. So Nathan's buddies were taken and my little one, having been in my pocket, was saved.
The name stems from my father's sensitive and tactful (note the sarcasm) comment about the story that I "made Sophie's choice"....now tell me, is that something to tell a gal like me?
Anyways, the day after that I convinced a nice young couple of obvious animal fanatism to take Nathan in as a pet and his life were completely saved ^_^

Another friend who kept me company this week is this little cocktail parakeet:

Luckily, he was considerate enough to not leave any birdly "presents" behind while he stayed where he did. Kind parakeet <3

* The hyena project: He doesn't know what to do with ice XXXD it's not in hus umwelt, the poor baby. he spent the whole hour pacing like he always does with short tiny breaks to check if anything tasty melted off the ice yet and to lick it listlessly for a few minutes. Here's the ice lolly full of goody yum yums for hyenas like fish, whole chicken, canalopes and dates:

Bears go nutty over these lollies but I guess bears live in places much more prone to ice and snow while the currently more desert-inhabiting striped hyena has a problem wrapping his mind around the concept of nibbling and kicking the ice into melting to release the goody yum yum. Oh well, it's a result and it's a great result too IMO, so I'm pleased.

@_@

2008-06-19T14:38:00.001+03:00

Five work days + university + zoo experiment + project + university obligations = no life

However, I had this to cheer me up:
Brand New Monty Python Papperbok by Graham Chapman

My review

rating: 5 of 5 stars
Very silly.

View all my reviews.

Book report

2008-06-14T14:36:00.002+03:00

* A friend from uni forwarded my cat survey to his friends and they've been sending me back what is now the bulk of the Israeli voice in my survey. Thank you, Zohar!!

* Finished The Book Thief and here's the review:

The Book Thief by Markus Zusak

My review

rating: 5 of 5 stars
When I started reading this book I thought there was too much kitsch in it but then I told myself I've been reading too much documentry history books that human emotions seem like kitsch to me. Also, Zusak's writing swept me like a tidal wave.

This book really has everything; exact history, two sides of a coin, the whole ugly truth, and a boog plot. Sometimes it's got kitsch history moments but this book wouldn't become so glorified and admired by so many people if it hadn't had some pointless kitsch.

It's a wonderful, captivating read and it's written brilliantly, despite its slight amount of kitsch. I suppose saying it's not a human being narrating the book but death makes it some kind of an excuse to kitsch. I guess.

Still, it's a lovely book as is highly recomended!

View all my reviews.

Am now reading Francis Wheen's Karl Marx

Happiness is....

2008-06-13T16:03:00.004+03:00

1. A cocktail parakeet on my shoulder, playing with my earring and putting its tiny face into my curls' loops.
2. Fluffing up a bunny and having a child-costumer come up to me asking if they can hold it and to quickly and sternly answer "No".
3. Doing the same to an annoying screeching teenager girl, who has been running around the store aimlessly babbeling nonsense and responding to animals' natural behavior like only stupid teenaged girls can react when they think being disgusted and amused by whatever looks odd to them is the right and feminine thing to do, and is now standing by the bunny pen with a large sign on it saying 'Do Not Touch the Animals' asking if she can pet the bunny.
4. Fondling a rat who, after a long while of sniffing around my hands and shirt, curls up in my palms and goes to sleep.

Did I tell you I love my job yet?

The hyena project relaxed a bit and now the toy stage is in full force. The bones experiment is done and next week'll be time for the ice lolly test. I enjoyed making the ice lolly (take a small plastic tub, fill it with cut up chicken, sardines, canalopes and dates, fill it with water and put it in the freezer) but I did not enjoy putting it in the freezer. I found a dead sheep there, waiting for consuming; not a pretty sight on the end of a long bunker-like refrigerator, opening a giant bunker-like door and once the clouds of frost dissappear to see the sheep's legs sticking out in odd directions @_@

Anyways! Here are some kitty pictures:

Muh?

You again? What do you want?

The biggest toy bone (the one he did not yet consume, BTW) was also a key interest to the fluffers when I let them sniff it around. Scarlett was the most intersted:

She was trying to get under it for some strange reason...

Sam joined in

But gave up when Scarlett started showing too much interest. He's a gentleman like that; he'll give her whatever she's interested in even if he's playing with it. The only thing he'll take from her is the food bowl come gushy food time...

Hopefull much, ne?

She tried biting it from every direction

She even managed to drag it for a few centimeters...

Today I was in the zoology garden doing the last round of the bones test and here are pictures!!

This is the predator's compound's yard. Mostly the wolves are in it but the hyena gets to go there once in a while

This is the hyena in one part of his cage. The other part is of equal size on the other side of the wall.

Shiran, who came up with me onto the roof of the wolves & heyna side of the compound, looking glum. I had to take someone up there with me due to security orders...

More of the hyena

Standing in his water pool, he likes sitting there, scratching himself or drinking the water while cooling on them.

Bones round I. Note the big yellowish bone is the same one Scarlett tried having a go at. Note the changes a hyena can do...

And that's it for today, I'll bring pictures of the ice lolly round as well ^_^

Yup yup

2008-06-09T14:39:00.003+03:00

* The cat handling survey's on the roll!! If you wish to participate (which means you have a cat who's willing to be picked up or you frequently meet a cat who does so - like in a family's/friend's house) please email: CatSurvey@windowslive.com with a headline "bloggish" Thank you!

* The hyena thing is semi-solved, that is, if the hyena won't destroy all the bones we brought him too fast....

* Finished reading A Historical Achievement and its Evolution (BTW, they didn't mis-use the term 'evolution 8D) and here's the newly-made Goodreads review-form thingie:

A Historical Achievement and its Evolution by Abigale Paz-Yeshaiyahu

My review

rating: 3 of 5 stars
This is a gathering of many articles dealing with the kibbutz and moshav movements, the political and general history of the two.

A promising book, it managed to be a vewry good and educating book covering history well until it reached topics beyond that of WW2 and beyond. Until then it was extensive, well written, easy to read history and a bit of philosophy. Everything beyond the second world war and the foundation of Israel (including the big Stalin-good-or-bad crisis in the kibbutz movement!) was neglected. The articles became vague and overly sociologistic-politic-centered. Besides one purely economic article about the crumbling of the lesser-successful kibbuts during the 80s, and an article about Ben Gurion's efforts to create education settlements for the new arrivals as Israel was founded, there was nothing historical about anything happening in Israel beyond 1939.

Big, big, GIANT cock-up and a huge mistake in a book which claims to cover the kibbutz and moshav movements from 1900 to 1990.

View all my reviews.

Am now reading: The Book Thief by Markus Zusak

* I started putting some old anime-fandom-era treasures up to sale on Ebay and so far the one product I put on is getting quarrled over by two people, good good ^_^

waves smoke away

2008-06-06T22:19:00.004+03:00

I got a job! I'm now a proud (and happy) worker in a PET SHOP in a neighboring city's mall. Yeah, Couldn't have thought of a better part-time job for me than that, huh? I'M SO HAPPY!! A hissing cockroach walked on me and a tarantula walked on me and a leopard gecko bit me and a budgy walked on me and an ara parrot missed pooping on me and rats smelled me and a siberean hamster yelled at me and *can go on forever* fun fun!!

On a different note; the hyena experiment is under a bit of problems. Here's a short video you can sort of make out my mood from:

Goodnight and happy D-Day anniversary.

Quick Note

2008-05-28T20:08:00.002+03:00

* Dana has left the animal behavior lab course and I'm therefore alone on the job. Not that I mind; I much prefer working alone rather than having to synchronize everything with other people. Also news on the course is that the martes are making a full use of their enclosure's branches, shelves and various entertainment facilities and despite the fact that they do show some repeatative behavior, they're also doing a whole lot more (only about 10% of what they've been doing was repeatative behavior) while the hyena's spening half an hour pacing without noticing what's going on around him...so the martes are off the topic, but I'll make 'em toys anyways <3

* The new Legend chapter is out in my original fiction LJ and FictionPress, go read it.

Over and out.

A bit of history

2008-05-21T11:06:00.002+03:00

Theres an employment fair in the university today, where various companies spread out their nets for enhgeneers and computer people (believe me, I looked, there's nothing for anyone else in there). Amungst the booths was a booth by Siemens, with the usual bumbling recruitment people and free candy to lure hungry peniless students into the flytrap. I approached one of the ~~salesmen~~ recruitment guys and asked him if he knew Siemens had factories in Auschwitz, Ravensbruck and was a general employer of forced labor and nazification during the second world war, that they actually produced crematoriums for Buchenwald. His answer was, after a small awkward silence, "uh....they don't do that anymore".
Yeah, Allies troops can do that to you sometimes...shame, isn't it?

Just for further reading, here's Siemens' official declaration of the subject in their website:

From 1933, National Socialist economic policy pursued two primary goals: combating unemployment and “militarization of the German economy.” 'combating unemployment is a funny way of saying 'firing jews and hiring gentiles A four-year plan was instituted in 1936 to ready the economy and the armed forces for war within the space of a few years. Like other sectors, the electrical industry received an increasing number of orders from public offices and was drawn into the program of war preparations. This development marked the onset of a phase of rapid growth that continued through to the end of World War II So, nazis are good for business, eh?.

Following its invasion of Poland in 1939, Germany embarked on a gradual transition to a war economy. The state restricted and even prohibited the production of certain civilian goods and requisites, and military conscription led to a widening shortage of labor. gee, you could have solved that by putting women into factories like the US, UK and Soviets did...or you can just put the women in the army, like the soviets, but women in the nazi idea was a baby factory (and the occasional guard dog when needed in camps) but never anything more useful than that... As a result, an increasing number of foreign civilians – men and women – were employed in manufacturing. Initially, they chose to work of their own free will re-writing history, ladies and gentlemen, is not just a Soviet feature; capitalists do it too ^_^. Later, though, many were forced into labor. They worked throughout German industry – in the manufacturing sector, in public services, and in agriculture. By the winter of 1941-42, the German economy had become entirely dependent on forced labor.

In late 1944, at the height of World War II, Siemens’ total workforce of 244,000 included some 50,000 people who had been put to work against their will. The overall number of men and women who served as forced labor at Siemens during the war years was, however, higher. No actual numbers and the number which do exist, I don't know of a source that can approve them, but that's something that can be checked

During the final years of the war, numerous plants and factories in Berlin and other major cities were destroyed by Allied air raids. To prevent further losses, manufacturing was therefore moved to alternative places and regions not affected by the air war. Like Poland? that was before 1944-1945... The goal was to secure continued production of important war-related and everyday goods. According to records, Siemens was operating almost 400 alternative or relocated manufacturing plants at the end of 1944 and in early 1945.

Germany’s political, military and economic collapse led to the closure of Siemens’ plants in Berlin on April 20, 1945. By the time the war came to an end, the greater part of Siemens’ buildings and industrial installations had been completely destroyed. The company’s overall losses resulting from World War II amounted to 2.58 billion reichsmarks – four-fifths of its total assets. Makes you cry, doesn't it? I mean, they were at a horrible loss, horrible, you see; they're the victims here, the army used them, the poor things.

Ugh.

LOL

2008-05-17T15:22:00.003+03:00

* Tomorrow's invert lab is about flat worms, hooraah!

* I gave the nuts at cat_macros a gathering of the best Sam and Scarlett pics and this is what they came up with:

* Finished reading Salmon of Doubt and here's the Goodreads review:

It's a great shame that not only did we lose Douglas Adams as a writer, lecturer, protector of endangered species and funny man in general, but also that The Salmon of Doubt was never completed.

This book is a gathering of Adams' interviews, half-made ideas, small stories, lectures, articles and three chapters from his to-be new Drik Gently book. His writing is, as usual, timeless and wonderful, a treasurechest of wit and enlightening little remarks about the world humans in it and the techn...more It's a great shame that not only did we lose Douglas Adams as a writer, lecturer, protector of endangered species and funny man in general, but also that The Salmon of Doubt was never completed.

This book is a gathering of Adams' interviews, half-made ideas, small stories, lectures, articles and three chapters from his to-be new Drik Gently book. His writing is, as usual, timeless and wonderful, a treasurechest of wit and enlightening little remarks about the world humans in it and the technology we create.

It's a wonderful book and I highly recommend it.

Next up: A Historical Achievement and its Evolution by the Ben Guriun institution of Israeli studies. The name alone is a mis-use of the term 'evolution' but I'm being a petty nerd saying that.

* And speaking of Goodreads, I've just discovered I can manually type in all the too-local-to-be-on-Amazon books!! That's great, now I can type in all the holocaustic stuff.

Cat crib - UR DOING IT WRONG

2008-05-12T21:35:00.002+03:00

Sam loves getting under mobile objects and slither around on his belly, at top speed, towards things (mostly people, Scarlett and table legs). This saturday he did it with their new cat tent, usually he does it with his beloved paper bag.

Scarlett and the tend. Whenever Sam's having a good time in the tent, she'l get in it and kick him out. She does that with his bowl, too, and with any toy he's playing with. His revenge - come gushi-food time he'll nudge her away from her plate to pig it out (often before he finished his share!)

The lovely fluffers

Sam and his bowl. As you can see, he grew into it a little, the little fluff and blubber lump that he is >.<

The glass gives a good view to smeared-curled paws!

Do any of you long-haired cat owners see these on your cats; curly areas in the middle of the smooth fur? Sam's got these in the fur on the sides of his belly and on the rear of his thighs and they reappear again after we comb him (we do this every day)

Snuggled up

Very pleased with his bowl and with existance in general

Finished reading Darwin's The Expression of the Emotion in Humans and Animals, here's the Goodreads review:

This book is more a historical document than a scientific paper, by today's requirements for scientific documents.
Darwing collects here his notes on the expressions of humans with a single chapter about animals and some referrences to monkeys, so the title is highly misleading (it annoyed me, anyways).

Despite that, this work is at the root of understanding both human and animal behavior and the three principles of expression are now evidently the base of every modern theory on animal and h...more This book is more a historical document than a scientific paper, by today's requirements for scientific documents.
Darwing collects here his notes on the expressions of humans with a single chapter about animals and some referrences to monkeys, so the title is highly misleading (it annoyed me, anyways).

Despite that, this work is at the root of understanding both human and animal behavior and the three principles of expression are now evidently the base of every modern theory on animal and human behavior and that, in itself, gives this book a historical value.

Darwing depicts his notes on his own children, on various and un-measured sightings of human and animal beahvior (like "I once saw a girl doing ___ " or "my neighbour's dog once ___ ") which nower days would be completely unfit for scientific research. Those were the days, though, and for anyone interested or amused by the development of scientific thinking and research this book is an enjoyable gem.

Another historical value this book has is in the fact that, in order to investigate human expression in human societies relatively unexposed and influenced by Eurpoean man, Darwin had a small army of informants at remote Biritsh colonies investigating and reporting of their experiences with the local natives. These informants were judges, policemen, missionaries and wives of various officials. With these times long gone (thankfully), it's a reminder and a documentation of the spirits of the time and the way these far-away cultures, still unchanged at the time, behaved.

This book is not an easy read as the english is that of Victorian times and often words that mean one thing to us mean another, when he author is concerned, and the unabridged version hold a lot of repeating and coarse writing that's not for readers who just want an easy book to stare at.

Still, it's a good book, and for historians with a love for human studies, it's a good book

Am now reading: Douglas Adams' The Salmon of Doubt

Happy birthday, Israel

2008-05-08T21:00:00.002+03:00

* The second semester started and though the fallen soldiers memorial day and independence day cut two days off the week I managed to experience most of the classes (save for Evolution). So far so good, and here's what we have this time:
Microbiology - the prof. of which is a chubby and huggable little Sweedish Chef lookalike who's prone to smiles and staying off boring subjects.
Mulecular Biology - lead by a prof who sort of looks like Christopher Ryan with a little more hair. So far, boring as hell, actually, but tolerable.
Invertebrates Lab - only had classes so far but it's fun fun fun; lots of cool facts about inverts!
Evolution - which I have yet to have a class in but it should be interesting, lead by the last prof who taught us Animal Behavior.
Animal Behavior lab - AWESOM!! Hooked up with uni-gang-member Dana to work on steriotypical beharion (a.k.a pacing in our case) in the striped hyena and stone martens of the zoology garden.

* We're so kicking ass with that animal behavior lab project; we already have the experiment procedures figured out and a plan all ready and that SO impressed the guides and prof, way cool. We're going to make toys so the little beasts won't be bored and neurotic which also contributes to their quality of life ^_^

* Today is independence day for Israel and we celebrated by going to Jerusalem's Israel museum and science museum. The first was very nice, had a lovely mini model of Second Temple Jerusalem and the Kumeran scrolls along with some modern art I wasn't bothered with and a show of liberated art stolen from jews by the nazis.
The science museum was fun and cool and the exhibition about medicins and drugs had a bit where you can build molecules from beads and bonds and such and I made Alanine in a peptide bond with Cistein. Yes. Nerdy. I know.
The first museum also had a fantastic book about crusaders in Israel, their beginning, their various waves of conquest and their way of life and I got it for almost 200 shekels less its original price because the cover was mis-glued to the paper. Luckily, my grandfather worked at a printing house and dad knows a thing or two on fixing these things. Basically, I got an extremely cool book for dirt cheap ^_^

Ta ta!

It's been ages.....

2008-05-02T10:12:00.005+03:00

And I have so much to tell...

* Test season's over! This tuesday was the last test - Biochemistry - and what a test it was, good lord. Anyone who was asked about it complained about how difficult it was, which is perfectly understandable since the questions were never on the processed and cycles we learned but on teeny, meaningless details and petty things half of which we either heard a tiny bit about in sidenotes or things we were told will not be included in the test....way to go, assholes.
So far I'm taking Genetics, Animal Behavior and Anymal Physiology re-takes to improve my score on them and get my average bounced a bit.
Microbiology Lab test turned up to be quite the sweetheard; 86%!! first calculative-science test I got such a high score in, and it's got a heavy influence on the average, too, so that's sweet as hon-ey.
The next semester starts this sunday, which means I had 4 days to rest, relax and get ready for the new semester....lovely, innit?

* A tiny kitten was brought to the public garden/yard/walkway under my building by the cat-feeding-friend in the neighborhood. A cute little energetic male white and ginger fluffball, he stayed around for about two weeks, getting fed and played with by me three times a day (the friend who brought him coming to visit him as well, as well as another cat feeding friend from my building) and three days ago he was seen playing with two young ladies and later appeared no more in the shrubbery where he lived so, though I wasn't around to confirm it, he was adopted. Hopefully the little bugger's found a tolerant home because, as rediculously cute as he was, he had a nasty habit of biting as hard as possible when in a playing fit.

* Top celebrate the end of the test season, I joined a two day hike with two faculty friends in the Golan Hights. Though I worked a year in escorting trips and hikes around the country, I never had any hike that was this difficult or with the whole two days' equipment on my back (and, believe me, it makes a difference!) but, my god was it fun!!
We took a bus up north to Kiryat Shmone and slept the night there, hitchhiked our way to the start of the trip on the next morning, Making our way down from the middle of the Hermon mountain and surrnounding mountains's ridges, walked about 10 hours from our start point to our nightly resting point. the next day we finished decending the Golan Hights and into the Hulla valley through streams and beautiful, lush green land. It's a good season to hike in the Golan; right after the winter's freezing cold and before the summer sets in and makes everything yellow and dry. I had a ball of a time and traveling with two other nature fans who fawn over insects and other animals and flowers like you's great, great fun.
Piccies!!

A lovely butterfly we found on the side of the road and chased around like idiots to get good shots of, while trying to keep it off the road.

What a looker.

View of the road we decended. We hiked through the various fields and groves and made out way to the little brown buldge you see to the right of the picture which is Kalat Namrud.

A tiny turtle we found on our way, chatting with some frogs in a small stream. He had an incredibly long tail!

If it's hard to spot the insect in the picture, imagine spotting it in life size (even tinier), which Zohar, one of the two guys I hiked with, managed it. The insect was perfectly camoflagued as a piece of drifting seeds the kind that flowers give way. Lovely thing.

Some lovely blooming on a ground-splayed nettle.

A slightly closer view of Kalat Namrud.

View up at one of Kalat Namrud fort's guard towers

The company. To the left is Zohar; a zoology-bound student who works with fresh water insects and hopes to find his niche in nature conservation and find a cute to human over population. To the right is Nativ; a Geography-Biology student who's inclined more towards the biology and hopes to find his spot in ecology. Both guys are quite the expert hikers and came equiped with all the gear, maps ect.

A part of the re-built fort at Kalat Namrud. The fort was originally built by the Mamluks a the beginning of the 13th century. After an attempted conquest by crusaders, it was regained by the muslims and renovated lavishly to its current and much larger shape with lots of halls, guard towers and particularly strategic gate (an 'L' shaped entry with a very narrow corridor so as to block any direct horde invasion with horses/spears/whathaveyou which can also be seen in the same-period main gate in the wall around the ancient city of Jerusalem)

View at the Hulla valley and some leftovers of the Golan Hights from the fort.

A carved declaration of glorification to the re-builders of the fort including details about when the fort was rennovated, who was its architect, the sponsor and the area's warlord who settled in the fort.

Yours truely on some scattered rocks in one of the fort's yards. Te climb on that rock cost my left shin some skin....

The guys on the top of the new castle's guard tower top. It was insanely windy up there as you can see by the wincing Nativ.

View to the old and original fort.

A lion carving found in one of the halls. It closely resembles the much earlier Assurian carving of lion hunts and other bragging depictions from the Persian area, IMO anyways.

Over time, one of the lowest halls became filled with water and the cielling collapsed after various earthquakes and now the place's filled with pea soup (not really, but it looks like it, don't it? 8D)

View at the western wall of the fort, along the line of the new fortification with its guard towers and the older part.

Inside the 'Beautiful Tower', a guard tower with seven arches and a seven-edged pillar in the center, each arch with its medivel firing slit.

Such as this:

View at the new fort from the old fort tower.

We almost finished decending from the mountain on which Kalat Namrud was perched and were about to decend more to the Banias river nature reserve on which we had a clear view of (and where I spotted a rather large hyrax, the only one of its kind which I saw in the whole trip) when a grasshopper nymph caught our eye.

The Bainias fall. Down its stream we found a place to perch and spend the night in the reserve, near a bend in the river, under the tree's canopy. Before we entered the Banias resevre Zohar, who had a lot of work in his lab, left us and the next day was jus me and Native.

The Banias' trail through the thick bush and forest on the final trail from the Golan to the Hulla.

Dragonfly; not just a lovely Fleetwood Mac song.

Some botany.

A trailer we found on a resting point in Shear Yeshuv village at the end of the Bainas resevre. The whole resting stop was full of these mosaic-works; the picnic tables, the various flower pots, some of the floor tiles, quite some work.

Turtles in a small stream by Dafna kibbutz.

A crab at a smililar stream further down the road.

View from the edge of one of the kibbutz's fields at the area we hiked a day before. The kibbutz sealed off the thicket at the stream's edge (probably clearing the land to make for agricultural processing), leaving around the stream only a skeletal coverage of the actual stream of the natural wild greenery and broadered it all off with a lowe electric fence against wild boars....the field itself was fenced off so there's no free access for humans nor animals...aren't humans great -_-

A cock up a tree in a by-the-stream fish restaurant on the Snir stream. We had a bathroom stop there, no dining.

A small cascade on the Snir stream trail. We took a swim in the stream's freezing cold water (its a melting-snow water stream and the season was early enough for it to be still chilly) which was quite rediculously fun.

A huge tree on the Snir's stream. Much of the trail there was through the water.

And that's that! See you in the next semester....

Stuffs, many stuffs

2008-04-10T21:22:00.003+03:00

Nerdiness: How bad can it get? Pretty damn bad. You think blowing things up and making shampoo jump is the worst of it? I find this song is disturbing enough to gain a few Super Nerdiness points; The PCR Song

I love the black guy who kisses the PCR. Crazy, nutty, nutty geeks. You can find the (nerdy) lyrics here. BTW, our lab instructor told us the guy who invented the damn method had taken some 'reality enhancing substances' before thinking up the idea. The jokes amungst the professors go that the guy's an idiot who happed on the idea, made his money, and returned to his bleak life of not-very-clever semi-scientific decelerations and mindless existence. They say he wasn't the brightest crayon in the box, not the fastest horse on the track, but who cares when the guy's obviously making so many people happy (the nerds that they are...)

Tests: Animal Physiology's behind me. It was hard but it was hard for everyone which at least gives me some perspective on how I might have done. Maybe. Genetics results is back with 60%. It's not a fail but it's not a very bright score. Luckily the course isn't very heavy on the average calculations so I'll sign up for a re-take and see how it works up my average and if I'm happy with what I've got I'll not bother taking it again. I didn't have good enough time to practice for it, despite the fact that it was a very hard test that needs proper studying to so I'm not disappointed or anything and it's not a fail so I don't have to take it if I don't want to.
But guess what, the Test Analysis course, the one with the professor who snarled at me whenever he's answer my questions? I got 82% in it >.< score! Not so bad at all ^_^

TV babble: I'm hooked on The Shield. One of the channels has got it on rather late at night but I don't care; the plot is addictive and the men are H-O-T!! Damn, they're hot. Don't be frightened, I'm not on the brink of another silly period of fangirling idiotism; had quite my fill with that. Still, I can bathe my eyes in the loveliness and relish the plot, ne?

Book Report: Finished The Night Watch and enjoyed every minute of it to the (almost) tiniest bit. Here's the Goodreads review:

I loved this book. Not just because it was a way-way-way better version of the two movies, but also because it was one of those rare and precious truly novelty fantasy books.

Who'd think Evil'd need a license, that Good was bound to paperwork? The powers, super creatures, spells and potions, all are explained carefully, without pompous drama or pathos sticking to human emotions, wants and conflicts.

The small tidbits of history, biology, Russian life and modern pop culture only add to the list of loveliness that makes this book and the thought behind it so unique and refreshing from all the tacky Hollywood-like 'magicians, werewolves and vampires, oh my!' fiction and movies out there.

The movies do this great plot and writing a great dishonor but they're still fun to watch.

Despite the somewhat unsurprising endings of the last of the book's stories, and the slight sense of disappointment, it's still a good book with great writing, exciting and fascinating plots and a lot of work put into it.

I highly recommend this book!

Am now reading: Charles Darwin The Expression of the Emotions in Man and Animal

Kitty mayhem: I'm in the middle of test season but the cats'll have none of it. So what if I need to concentrate on my studies? So what if my folders have precious paper material in them I'll need whole, without paw prints or scratches? They want attention!!

Tell me, who can concentrate with such a thing at the corner of your eye?

"Forget the cramming; my belleh calls to thee"

Striking a pose

I'm afraid my PostIt note-maker-thingies proof too much of a temptation for the fluffies; they must have them!!

"w0t? I'm not doing anything"

"Meh, I'm bored, now that you're not squealing to make us stop"

And this is after the little monster (Sam) got himself soaking wet and leaped on my work table to sit on my notes, looked me deep in the eyes (so I'll take particular note of his existence) and buggered off leaving me with a soaking page, the ink smudged and the highligher smeared....gee, thanks, kiddo.

Over and out for today ^_^

Reading list and a book review

2008-04-05T14:53:00.002+03:00

I've noticed that, according to my near-anal strict organization of my books on their shelves, that I have far too many subjects in my book collection than there is in my reading order list. Yes, I read books by a certain order, what of it? So anyways, here's the (new) list which I post here merely for future use by me:
1. General history
2. Terry Pratchett
3. Holocaust
4. Fantasy fiction
5. Zoology and animal behavior
6. Douglas Adams
7. Zionism and jewish history
8. Historical romance
9. Communism
10. General fiction
11. Churchill' Second World War
12. Stephen King

Book Report: Ugh, waste of time. Mind you, it was even slimmer than Color of Magic so it took even less time to finish. Here's my Goodreads review:
I can't say I found any use in this book that I haven't found in other books; besides a few tidbits about holocaust denial, and some details about post-war and historical Auschwitz the town there was nothing new in this book.
It's the pocket book Auschwitz history, it touches every subject there is to learn about the camp, the guards, the prisoners, the resistance, the factories, everything (besides the great Canada corruption scandal which got Rudolf Hoss kicked out of the place) but in such ...more I can't say I found any use in this book that I haven't found in other books; besides a few tidbits about holocaust denial, and some details about post-war and historical Auschwitz the town there was nothing new in this book.
It's the pocket book Auschwitz history, it touches every subject there is to learn about the camp, the guards, the prisoners, the resistance, the factories, everything (besides the great Canada corruption scandal which got Rudolf Hoss kicked out of the place) but in such small details, mere names, dates and numbers.
This is dangerous; one of the biggest values tragedies like the holocaust can have to humanity is the education, so history won't repeat itself, but when everything is summarized so quickly and minimalistic ally, how can anything properly educational can come out of it?
The first page in the book is a dislodged, mixed up snippets of testimonies (each only a few lines) and that's about the only touch into the human experience of the crimes committed in that camp, when the best way to make people come out of the shock of the horrific details is by seeing human emotions in fellow humans who survived the camp.

I don't recommend this book, at all, not for a proper reading

Am now reading: Sergei Lukyanenko's The Night Watch

Kitties, kitties, kitties

2008-04-03T20:45:00.001+03:00

Scarlett's been lurking on my books and school stuff cabinet, looking at the bits outside my window so I placed a blankie for her and hey presto! A kitteh perch of much delight ^_^

"My new perch, me likie"

I placed Sam there for equality (Sam's too fat to jump up there on his own, the poor baby <3) and here is the resulting cuteness:

"Cool pad you got there, sista" says Sam

Any of you ever noticed their cats stretching themselves up walls and other similar places and got the feeling they're using their body's measurements to gauge distances? Sam started doing it and Little Miss Climb, Claw and Jump Everywhere a.k.a Scarlett picked it up from him and now she's everywhere!!

Destroying the little doll my sister made is obviously more interesting for Scarlett than licking her butt

Calming down a little

That poor bunny doll is doomed when they're around <3

"Is my pad now, what you want with it?"

Last night, as my dad was on the balcony with them, Scarlett clawed her way up the wall trying to get to a moth flying around the balcony light...

Felis dramaticus

And here's a video!
Usually Scarlett's a lot more active with this toy mouse; she'll hug it, bunnyfoot it, bite it etc. But when you stick a camera in a cat's face, he'll be a cat and refuse to cooperate XD

Tests so far and a book report.

2008-04-02T13:56:00.002+03:00

Tests: Animal Behavior was hard but fair. I hope all the idiots who filled the classroom just because they thought it's a cutsy little course with lots of animal pictures learned a lesson; this is a serious subject, as serious as any of the micro__ and biotechnology subjects *grumblegrumble* I had only three days to properly cramm to it and two out of those I shared with cramming to Genetics so I will not be surprised if my grade will not be as much as I expect of myself. Yet, there is a re-take exam always.
Genetics is tomorrow and I hope all will go well. It's the kind of test you can bring anything into (besides the course's book, of course) so I'm arming myself to the teeth with just about anything I can put into the folder. I've finished all 11 practice tests and have marked out which subjects will show me a hard time so I know what to tackle now. It should be alright, if I keep myself levelheaded. Wish me luck!

Book Report: Ah, didn't expect to finish this book quite so fast but it is a very slim book, despite its ripe and rich content, and the kind of books which are really hard to put down. Here's my Goodreads review:
Pratchett's first Discworld book, it's an amazingly adventurous, imaginative, exciting, amusing book about a poor failed wizard, Rincewind and the tourist that is the world's trouble-magnet, he's constantly made to look after.
If I give you any more plot details I'll spoil you and you really aught to read this book without knowing at all where the plot's going or it'll be just like riding a roller-coaster without feeling gravity; a total bummer.
It's not his funniest book, I must add, but it...more Pratchett's first Discworld book, it's an amazingly adventurous, imaginative, exciting, amusing book about a poor failed wizard, Rincewind and the tourist that is the world's trouble-magnet, he's constantly made to look after.
If I give you any more plot details I'll spoil you and you really aught to read this book without knowing at all where the plot's going or it'll be just like riding a roller-coaster without feeling gravity; a total bummer.
It's not his funniest book, I must add, but it's novelty and it's radical and abundant imagination and fun makes it all worth while. Highly recommended!

Next up: Sybille Steinbacher's Auschwitz, A History.

The start....and a book report

2008-03-28T20:59:00.004+03:00

So far on Animal Behavior: I sure do hope one of the lecturers won't ask us the kind of questions he gave us as sample questions in the test. If so then I can only conclude he's hoping we'll earn good grades by cramming and memorizing like parrots, forgetting it all the next day.
He's a strange fellow, that lecturer. You know that old hobbit in Lord of the Ring's beginning, the one who frowns sourly at Gandalph as he rides into the Shire, well, whenever I see that prof he frowns at me sourly like that. I swear I've never done a thing against him.

So far on Genetics: whoever's writing the tests for this course is either very nerdy or extremely bored. Today I exercised on a story with Popeye and Olive in which I concluded that, according to blood type, Olive's been cheating on Popeye...oh lord, the nerdiness.

Book Report: Quite an air of disappointment on Tuchman, really. Here's the report:
Tuchman writes well, she obviously knows a great deal of history and can often reach that almost-impossible achievement of historians to both tell as many facts as possible while not overloading. I say 'often' because this book didn't always have this moment.
Two things I liked about this book:
1. Tuchman's deep familiarity with a very wide range of history topics and times.
2. The obviously matriculate and objective, clear way of defining 'folly' by a certain logical and smart definition without getting too emotional and choosing more "hot topic" acts of silliness.
Two things I didn't like about this book:
1. Despite her great knowledge of the periods she wrote about, she failed to write a proper background of the ruling systems and the climate of the eras she discussed. Trying to understand how corrupt the six popes of the renaissance it'd help to know why the popes has such a control over Rome as if they were the kings (rather than the rulers of the Vatican as they are now...) or who were the French they fought against.
2. The chapter about the US in Vietnam was both boring, tedious, overly-detailed and featured Tuchman referring to the Americans as 'us' and 'we' which indicates a lack of objectivity a historian should avoid at all costs.

It's an OK book but definitely not the best general history book I've ever read.

Am now reading: The Color of Magic by Terry Pratchett.

Oh, the nerdiness

2008-03-23T15:57:00.003+02:00

Our little kitty's too big for his old bowl and has lately been spilling out of it whenever he tried curling up in it (his legs would slip out and his fats would spill out on the rims of the bowl) so we got him a bigger bowl into which, I have no doubt, he'll eat and grow himself into. His father was a 13 kilo little fluff monster so I know he'll end up a biggie like his dad, even if we snip-snipped him.

Like our dear Clio, Sam also developed a habit of sitting with his ass on my mouse-hand for attention. Only Clio was slim and flexible and quite able to clean her butt, not something I can say about or plump Sam who once in a while needs us to give his rear end a cleaning. We're so lucky he's a raggie or we'd be in hospital by now <3

Last friday friend Guy from the university gang threw a purim party and here are some (shamefully blurry) pictures of the events. I will find better pictures, I promise.

Here's Shay dressed as his pet mantis, Menash

Here's Olga (dressed as a zombie nurse) and her boyfriend (dressed as Clockwork Orange's Alex)

Here are (from left to right) Merav dressed as a chinese thing, Neta dressed as something ambiguous and Dana dressed as a Hawaii girl.

These are Guy (at the back) dressed as last year's math course lecturer who we suspect is actually Count Dracula and Shiran (at the front) dressed as a flying gay deer of some sort.

I dressed as a mouse going to sleep. I'll find a picture of it.

And now, nerdiness beyond repair, cellphone pictures from various microbiology labs:

Creating as buffer was never something I thought would be easy, but it is!! As you can see, this pH stick indicating the exact pH we (me and my lab partner, Guy) wanted to achieve is evidence of such a triumph.

These are the E.Coli we planted on our petri plate in the first lab and got to see in the second lab. I took mine home (freaked my lab teacher out a bit) where Scarlett licked it happily due to the agar's attractive smell.

3rd lab results as we checked for protein activity rates in various concentrations (I think) then checked to make sure, using a spectrophotometer.

The charting of the results of the 4th lab, where we checked to see how much E.Coli survive on various substrates before we make a plasmid out of them.

Handed over my first test this semester (~~student~~ test season starts next week @_@) for 'Lab and test result analysis' course which had nothing to do with the title. We had a home-test over the weekend the answers to which we were to hand over this morning. Nice picture, eh? Quite pastoral, no? Well, a touch of pastorality before the test season <3 here, have some fluff in bookshelves:

Lab report and progress

2008-03-15T15:31:00.003+02:00

* I hate lab reports. With a vengeance, I do. When I don't get my data for the calculations mixed up because I'm looking at the wrong line in the data sheet I'm getting confused in the calculation itself and when I'm done doing that I have me some confusion while feeding the data to the semi-logarithmic graph I make of it. The semi-logarithmic graph has been made manually, mind you, as requested by the lab staff of babysitting masterants. Ugh, I have semi-logarithmic graphs, yuck yuck yuck!!

* Guess what, I'm done with the tests time of the hyrax project!! Hooraah! I did some initial statistic handling and have sent my guide person a heads up so she can send me the testosterone, age and sex sheet stuff. Cool!! All that's left then is further statistical analysis and writing down the paperwork. I've already written down the protocol, so the Tools and Methods bit is done, done done ^_^
As for the cat cradling project, me and Prof #2 are trying to get a hold of each other and meet up about reading material for the project. Hopefully I'll manage to get a hold of him this week.

Book report and a sweet story

2008-03-12T19:21:00.002+02:00

* First, the sweet story: The Story of Adam & Eve's Pets

Adam and Eve said, 'Lord, when we were in the garden, you walked with us every day. Now we do not see you any more. We are lonesome here, and it is difficult for us to remember how much you love us.'

And God said, 'I will create a companion for you that will be with you and who will be a reflection of my love for you, so that you will love me even when you cannot see me. Regardless of how selfish or childish or unlovable you may be, this new companion will accept you as you are and will love you as I do, in spite of yourselves.'

And God created a new animal to be a companion for Adam and Eve. And it was a good animal. And God was pleased. And the new animal was pleased to be with Adam and Eve and he wagged his tail.

And Adam said, 'Lord, I have already named all the animals in the Kingdom and I cannot think of a name for this new animal.'

And God said, 'I have created this new animal to be a reflection of my love for you, his name will be a reflection of my own name, and you will call him DOG.'

And Dog lived with Adam and Eve and was a companion to them and loved them. And they were comforted. And God was pleased. And Dog was content and wagged his tail.

After a while, it came to pass that an angel came to the Lord and said, 'Lord, Adam and Eve have become filled with pride. They strut and preen like peacocks and they believe they are worthy of adoration. Dog has indeed taught them that they are loved, but perhaps too well.'

And God said, 'I will create for them a companion who will be with them and who will see them as they are. The companion will remind them of their limitations, so they will know that they are not always worthy of adoration.'

And God created cat to be a companion to Adam and Eve. And Cat would not obey them. And when Adam and Eve gazed into Cat's eyes, they were reminded that they were not the supreme beings.

And Adam and Eve learned humility. And they were greatly improved.

And God was pleased . . . . . .

And Dog was happy. . . . .

And Cat didn't give a crap one way or other....

* Finished Stephen King's Nightmares and ~~LOLerskates~~Dreamscapes and here's my review:
Stephen King lovers, horror lovers, mystery and suspense lovers.
review: Stephen King's works should usually be read in small doses, book by book and with a long stretch of time between reading one and the other or the magic somehow fades away.
That's usually the case.
With this book the magic ended and started again for every story, though some were better than the others (Night Flier, Rainy Season and The Moving Finger being some of those), they were all captivating, pleasant to read and wonderfully written.
This book also includes a hindu tale which he merely translated and a Sherlock Holmes story using characters he didn't come up with. These two put a little bit of a damper on a other-than-these book packed with originality and fun.
All in all a great book indeed and I highly recommend it

Am now reading Barbara Tuchman's The March of Folly: From Troy to Vietnam

New Legend Chapter, my two cents about humanity, cool science vids

2008-03-10T22:03:00.004+02:00

* The new Legend chapter is out, many thanks to Nat, Eddie Baby, for beta-ing it. To see the new chapter go to either my original fiction LJ or FictionPress.com.

* E.O. Willson says the reason for animal extinction can be summed up as HIPPO.
Habitat loss
Invading species
Pollution
Population (of humans)
Over-consuming
IMO I and the second P are one and the same. We should have never left centeral Africa...

* I've been neglecting the Fun Links Time tradition, haven't I? Here's something to make it up for you guys: Top 10 Amazing Chemistry Videos (and they really are amazing) of course Brainiac's got a foothold there, how couldn't it have? I heard the latest season has my good old friend, Vic Reeves in it instead of the Gorodetsky-like former presenter. Couldn't think of anyone other than Mr Reeves to do this sort of show XD speaking of crack!

book report and a second project and a break

2008-02-28T17:42:00.004+02:00

* Spoke to Mr Animal Behavior Proff and he was very pleased with the results of the poll (check it out, it's insane) as I said I'd like to do a research project on the subject he gave me his office number and said he has a masterant and a doctorant working on cat-related subjects so I might find a home there *squee*

* Finished Churchill's Their Finest Hour in The Second World War series (two down, six to go) and here's my book report:

The hard struggle of England's first few years in the Second World War are nicely depicted by Churchill's usual flowing language and dry humor.
His view of the Battle Over Britain might not be that of the citizen who was there to huddle in the Anderson shelter, but it's a vivid and fascinating description nonetheless.
This book was not as navy-obsessed as the first one, but in this book since Churchill had many reins in his hands, he insisted on bringing every memo, every letter and every note to have ever left his table to the book, which is very distracting and quite tiring, actually.

All in all it's a good book, there's hardly any bombardment of boring small technical details and the excitement of the war's made Churchill's writing juicy and adventurous. Also, it's one leader's point of view and not that of a soldier on the line or a minister of foreign affairs, all perspectives which together can give the whole picture.

It's a goods book, I recommend reading it, but I don't recommend taking every word in it for the complete truth

Am now reading: Stephen King's Nightmares and ~~LOLerscates~~ Dreamscapes which aught to be fun as any other Stephen King book.

* The BF business is over. The way which lead it to be over makes me want to get over it quickly and with as little effect on me as possible. Suffice to say is that experience with communication is acquired during relationships with women (if one has the want in them to learn, which the now-ex-bf had very little of) and only through said experience. Here's another 'requirement' to go on my 'what to look for in a partner' list.

Research stuff

2008-02-26T14:57:00.004+02:00

I finished another film which means there's a little less than one film left before I'm done with the 'testing' side of the project. Hoorah!

And speaking of researches, check this poll out which I devised after the latest lecture in Animal Behavior. It might sound boggly and out-worldly but if I get the right results I'm pushing this to the proff who gave us this lecture and see if I can make it into a human-animal relationship research issue thing. Quite nice, eh?

And speaking of pointless researches, here's what Monty Python had to say:

Fluff and mayhem in Kfar Saba

2008-02-24T17:04:00.000+02:00

Sam and Scarlett had a mischievous weekend. Scarlett's always the initiator of all the trouble and Sam sort of hangs around at the side, giving us an "I was a good boy" if Scarlett gets caught and sharing Scarlett's spoils if we don't find out. They work in a team; Scarlett's the brain and Sam's the brawn.

Here's the little 'innocent angel' snuggled up in my duvet.

"It's so tough being pretty" and demonic!

Also, I have a question about a stain on Sam's tail, but only after some more fluff pictures!

Here's the second picture from the 'le innocent' set.

Secret hideaway - discovered! Abort! Abort!

Sam's too busy stuffing his face to note the ravaging plot.

A coat cave Scarlett settled into and Sam probably waiting for some kind of a response from us about this

It's really a saber-tooth lioness' cave, see, she dragged her hunt into it

And while I was taking pictures of the lioness, Sam's been frolicking with the camera bag's handle and got himself a little tangled..

"w0t's this, then?"

"Halp! They got me!"

Scarlett: What are you on about?
Sam: I can't get it off ;___;

The struggle continues...

Then I was sorting through some old Rocky Horror Picture Show stuff because Scarlett's discovered the feather scarves there and has been opening the closet to get to its bag. She kept on exploring away as I tried to put some order into things, the little devil.

Then the little monster does the one thing I really don't like her doing, which is climbing the bookshelves by clawing the books on her way up.

This is her "I'm not supposed to do that? Oh my..." face.

And, finally, the fluff wars:

This looks really bad, doesn't it?

The house fauna care very little for the house flora..

And that was the weekend.

The puppy response

2008-02-18T15:57:00.003+02:00

Hello, my name is Meirav Rath and I'm an attention whore. You give me attention, I'll be your best pal in the whole wide world.

I'm walking around the university today and run into my project's proff who's very responsive and smiley to my surprise. Enter attention whore. So I explain what I've been doing in the project so far (a.k.a what I did three weeks ago when I was NOT too lazy to sit to work on it...) and he mentioned a different graphics software I can work with. As a suggestion. He does not disapprove of what I already do or has any negative response to my 'reports'. Instead of saying "well, that'd sound like a good idea for ANOTHER RESEARCH" os something on the line of that, I say something on the line of "oh, yeah, that sounds great, I'll start redoing the whole thing with this software, what's its name again? ^_^ *wags puppy tail*". I'm more than halfway through with this project, but by god I'll re-do it ALL OVER AGAIN because my proff was nice to me *headdesk*

Go on, hit me, I deserve it *le sigh*

is a little stunned

2008-02-14T11:02:00.003+02:00

I'm not dead, I'm just stunned. Kidding.

OMG, look at the review I just got for my first chapter >.<

It's too bad you don't take any anonymous reviews. I ended up creating anaccount purely so that I could review your story! Now I know that sounds weirdand maybe a bit stalkerish, but hear me out. I've read your story two timesthrough now without a single comment. (The first time I was so obssessed withknowing what happened next I didn't want to stop for even 5 minutes to review,I have no excuse for the second time except maybe my horrid laziness.) Ifigure that your story deserves way more than my measly comments, butreviewing is the only thing I can do for you. You really deserve to know justhow highly I thought and still think of your writing, so I vow to coment everychapter of the revised version to make up for my silence. Your storyabsolutely blew me away the first time. I'm not that into AU stories but I wasso impressed with your's that I couldn't stop reading. It actually had a plotand characterization (not to mention some of the greatest animes combined). Ialso fell in love with Alex. Not love like, "Oh please whisk me away and marryme". It's more a sort of love that left me speechless and wanting to know more(bad explanation, maybe obssession's a better word...). Hopefully you includemore of his backstory here. Everytime you mentioned a tidbit of his past Ikept hoping more would follow it. He's such a complex character and I'm veryinterested in learning what makes him tick. With any luck more will berevealed this time. I am very excited to see the revised version. Thebeginning is so different from the other one I wondered if I had clicked theright link for a second! There's definately more description and imagery (APenglish coming through, sorry), but I can tell that you're not trying to rush.You are telling the story for the sake of sharing it, not to rush to an endingand moral. I eagerly await the next chapter!

Oh dear lord, it's too damn bad FictionPress.com is down for two days now because I want to answer this person's review and warship them a little for leaving such an amazing review. Seriosuly, this is the stuff that makes my muse breath, people; the affirmation that I'm not just cackaling madly to the great internet spaces, that I reach someone, that they like what I cackle. It's such an amazingly good feeling, wow!

And, yay! My LOL cat has made it to the front page!!

Sam and Tuli

2008-02-12T21:01:00.000+02:00

Sam had the chops today...poor little thing's still a bit woozy from the surgery but he's walking much better and (predictably for this little fella) his appetite is untarnished. We caught him mounting Scarlett this sunday after a long butt-sniffing and decided our little guy's no longer an innocent little kitteh.

We asked our vet for recommendation for a different vet to do Sam and Scarlett because we majorly fell out of trust with our clinic's surgeon after what he did to Clio. The vet who did Sam is an expert in surgeries and brought our baby back with no stitches, good as new (almost, poor baby).

So there, that's about Sam.

As for little Tuli, my soon-to-be-cat (am about to move in with the BF >.<) here are some pictures of the little tike from last weekend.

He's such a pretty little baby, isn't he? With those highlights under his eyes and his lush fur >.<

"I am the cat of this house, heed me, damnit!!"

Tuli ignores BF's sports habit

"How could you possibly find the television more interesting than prosh, elegant moi?"

Trying to eat BF

Zombie kitty wants braaaaiiiiiiinzzz

All shagged up and sleepy

I love this picture; BF and Tuli

Moi and Tuli

Sniffing the cat. It's addictive.

And now for something completely different; the best prank call ever:

Posted!!

2008-02-07T19:00:00.000+02:00

The very first chapter is done and published in my original fiction LJ. I have to wait three days until Fictionpress.com let me publish it there as well, but the deed has been done!! For the first chapter, please check out 'my fiction site' link in the links bar ^_^

Hope you like!

Animal Behavior, LJ drama, Book Report and kitty picture bombardment

2008-02-02T13:47:00.001+02:00

Animal Behavior: I love this course, not just because its about a subject I know a lot about, but also because it teaches me a lot about stuff I really, really love, with lots of cool animal examples. There's historical background, which is always good and a nice teacher who knows a lot about what he's talking about. He's naming a lot of things I read about and watched on TV and a lot of stuff I notices. Wonderful fun stuff.

LJ drama: Slashers can be stupid, fledgling fangirls can be stupid too, but having been the latter and taken shit from older girls I (hope) I have a slightly less dramatic attitude to drama attempts. The problem starts when I need to make it clear to the other girl that I'm not starting drama, that this is an exchange of opinions, that there's no need to bristle. Ah, well. With university and the BF supplying enough RL for me now, all this internetz nonsense looks so small...

Book Report: Finished Ender's Game....yes....I ate this one in one sitting; which is vary rare for me in books, never mind how much I love books.
It's a great book, not a perfect book, but a great book nonetheless. The plot is captivating, the sci-fi element is not ridiculous and the characters are believable and real. This is more of a psychological book than a sci-fi one.
Scott is a master psychologist but not a master writer; the ending was far too rushed for my taste (though there was closure, thus saving the reader from bitter disappointment and how Scott earns my respect) and one chapter was a little disjointed but the captivation this book inspired on me makes it completely forgivable.
I'm so, so happy the BF got me this wonderful reading experience; submerging into a book is such a pleasant spiritual experience for me <3

Next up: Churchill's The Second World War vol. 2; Their Finest Hour and you just know he'll be raving about the navy until there'll be foam at the corners of his mouth.

And now, some kitty pictures bombardment: this time the theme is 'it's a hard knock life to be a cat.
Seriously, the poor things are really having it tough lately....NOT!

Though they are getting quite old enough to start showing some behaviors...Sam's family jewels are getting dark and big (I'm not a pervert; I'm a biology student and am looking at things in a purely scientific way) and Scarlett's developed a taste to rolling around on surfaces. They're still very third grade about romance but they're getting towards an age where hormones won't ask them what they want.

See how hard it is to be a cat in my house? tssk, we really aught to cut them some slack, those poor little babies.

Sam likes water. He really loves water. He'll sit for hours with his chin in the water, leaning on the water bowl (we joke he's waiting by the water hole for the antelopes and gazelles to arrive...), plods around in the balcony when dad's smoking after it rained and getting his precious mitts muddy. Lately he started investigating the toilet bowl. After he grew big enough to no longer be in danger of drowning, we stopped closing the lid and he started exploring the new 'fountain'. I heard raggies are dog-like, but this is ridiculous! Anyways, here's him by the kitchen faucet.

*Shamelessly showing off teh BF with Scarlett* Scarlett's really taken to my BF as he to her, but it's only because the little fur devil's an attention hog and will come fluff up to him shamelessly. When the BF reaches for Sam the little guy either runs or stays for a pet or two like a good little doggy.

It's a hard knock life, for them

Cats have to always look dignified. Always!. Here's Scarlett looking perfectly dignified in a bag.

"What's funny, lowly human?"

Sleeping little devil princess

Be weary of the godly glow from Sun!cat

Unlike Scarlett, Sam's completely ignorant to the magic of sun beams. Never saw a cat who could resist the sun, but Sam is a remarkable cat. He'd rather spend his time on the bathroom floor, where it's cool. It's pretty cold here lately yet he refuses the treat of the sun, maybe he's just too hot in all that heavy fur. Who knows. Here's Scarlett in a sun beam.

Sam's "come hither" pose

Here's a cat from my university, standing on an original pole from a roman-time temple which is a part of the small archaeological garden bit the university has there. But the cat's more important. I approached the little fluff ball and scratched the base of its tail and it started licking the air and moving his head funny, making passing-by students look at the two of us funny (I was standing on tip-toe and grinning like an idiot)

Scarlett on the printer. Her ears look bigger than they really are in this picture; her ears are actually quite tiny.

And now, Sam interrupting my research project's work and general computer faring by wanting belly rubs. He's really clingy lately, probably because I'm spending a lot of time in university and with the BF and he's missing me (aww, sweet little bunny)

Belly rubs!!

Belleh rubs!

Gimmi belleh rubs or I won't let you type! (and kill you with teh cute)

Thus ends another episode of Sam and Scarlett's horrible, rough life.

Semester so far & Book report

2008-01-31T20:23:00.000+02:00

Semester stuff: How's the semester so far? Just fine, I'm waiting for the shit to hit the fan on some of the subjects but things look pretty OK so far. Animal Behavior is damn facinating, Genetics is cool, Biochemistry A and Animal Physiology's boring but tolerable, Experiment Analysis and Microbiology Lab is fine.
Unlike last year's lazing about (from ignorance of what tests are like in uni, not intirely out of laziness) I'm summerizing classes twice a week to stay in touch with the material and, also, there's far less material than last year's semesters.

This semester's favorit lecturers are the Biochemistry A proff and the Experiment Analysis lecturer.
Biochemistry proff is an israeli arab (because, aparently, we don't really treat our arabian citizens in aparthide style...) with an endearing sense of humor and a compassionate heart for the students facing his material's complexity. He knows when to gives a break when we're getting too sleepy and treats student questions with philosophy and respect where other lecturers would snob them out. Another respectable thing in the guy is the fact that when he doesn't know the answer to a student's question he'll just say he doesn't know.
Experiment Analysis is basically a course where we take a subject (the Ligioners' desease' bacteria for my group) and try to slowely patch together a do-able, reasonable experiment. The lecturer starts each class with a problem ("how to find which kind of mutant the ligionella bacteria you recieved in the mail today are") and shoots down our sprouting, green ideas like an expert AA battery ^_^ better him teach us the art of making reasonable research suggestions than our future professors, says I (from bitter experience...). The lecturer has a heavy stutter which he reins into control by focusing (and often slips when he's distracted) but he's still giving the classes with a sweet humorous atmosphere and a lot of brains. Fascinating stuff.

Book report: Finished reading Steve Jones' Almost Like A Whale. Damn wonderful book, honestly. I started reading it a little before the strike ended and was immediately glad for the little treasure box ofchances to refresh last year's ecology and taxonomy material. You'll find everything in Jones' book; ecology, evolution, genetics, microbiology, bacteriology, history, poetry, logic. Jones' style is wonderfully readable and elegantly addictive but most of all, it's simple and informative with a healthy dash of good, sharp humor. With very, very little mindless judgment to anyone (not even the 'monster' of creationism as so many american scientists are rediculously buzzing about) every argument for and against evolution is well represented, dealt with and explained in deep but not boring details. There wasnt a dull moment in this book and it managed to keep my attention without lapsing into petty anecdotes or meaningless detail scattering. A great, highly recommended book alltogether.

Next on my reading list: Orson Scott Card's Ender's Game which beloved boyfriend got me (*squee*)

And now an update: L'Oreal and Unilever decide to remove shark liver oil from their products now if only L'Oreal would completely stop experimenting its products of animals, I'll be its happy consumer.

The two news pieces I promised...

2008-01-21T13:29:00.001+02:00

1. I got fired after a small, silly, bitchy tackle with a coworker to a shift who was also themanager of night team, but which was based on a very deep and annoying problem. I have work ethics so I don't talk on the phone while I'm supposed to stay available to answer costumers' calls, and I try to stay by my work station in case I'll miss a call. Said coworker and manager had a habit of having private conversation on her line so that all the calls kept streaming to me and when she wasn't at that she'd talk on one of her own cell phones and not notice calls entering her computer thus ending up getting to me etc. On my last shift the pressure of calls was phenomenal and she chose the wrong time to be bitchy about me needing to answer even more calls (I answered twice her ammount by then) instead of using the relative calm in calls to eat my dinner.
Also, two months ago I covered for their asses by staying to do a double shift until the next morning because the guys who were supposed to replace us stood us up. On the morning after I was praised and promised a big bonus for that act of niceness by two of my bosses but two months later and there's zilch from them.
Screw them, I can find better places and I have better things to do now.

2. SCHOOL'S BACK!! Last friday the lecturers finally signed a reasonable agreement with the ministry of treasury and the strike is over! Aw, man, how I missed my faculty...I even missed the toilet <3 it seems the semesters will be shortened by two weeks and some substance diducted but also we'll be learning 6 days a week and not just 5 as usual. My faclty has yet to give us the year's new time table so I'm still happy and optimistic but there are high chances that I might have to postpone some of my choice labs (invertebrates and variational bugs labs, most likely) to next year when you're supposed to complete all your choice labs and classes.
But most importantly...SCHOOL'S BAAAAAAACK!!

Kitty pictures

2008-01-12T16:21:00.000+02:00

There are changes developing on both work front and university strike front, but both are yet resolved so I'll wait until there'll be something to share.

In the meantime; I've got kitty pictures!! I know you enjoy 'em and so here they are.

Spread out evenly.

Sam in his ~~lion den~~ cat tunnel.

All curled up and fluffy.

Getting cynical and annoyed with camera!mom.

Scarlett, ~~nursing~~ curling up with mom under the blanket.

Zzzz

When I finally have some time to sit to the computer, this is what happens; Scarlett wants to poke her fluffy sweet little nose into what I do.

Most unladylike.

"Leave me alone already, moooom!"

Note the fluff pantaloons.

Sam's really beginning to spill out of his bowl; he's just gotten too big for it >.<

And last but definitely not least; BF (who goes by the name of Ofer) and his complimentary cat - Tuli

More updates later (probably tomorrow)

I am alive (or so it seems)

2008-01-06T12:43:00.001+02:00

* I've worked six days this week, without even noticing it...damn, how did it come to this? Well, with nine days until the semester is due to be canceled by the strike for good and the professors still not willing to settle (they didn't show up to a meeting about it scheduled for yesturday...) it seems I still have time to keep gaining a financial fat layer before the disaster of how this academic year will look when it's finally started again will ruin any chance of me ever having a life beyond work and study.

* Speaking of life, me and the BF have a one month anniversary tomorrow (*squee*) and if I wasn't so cynical and shy I'd tell you exactly what I feel about it.

* I've updated my flicker account with some new pictures, including all my old hyrax pictures. As I was writing comments for each picture, I noticed how this stupid project and the treatment I get from the project guide didn't mar my enthusiasm for these strange little beasts. *sigh*

* Finished Mists of Avalon. Have you ever found yourself reading a book, knowing you're reading crap, but the writing style and the occasional promising plot twist kept you going?
Maybe I was fooled by Hallmark's production, Merlin, and I expected Morgaine to have a backbone to call her own. Zimmer Bradley took whatever hope I had of finding yet another female character to favor and crushed them; Morgaine is obsessed with who everyone marries and who gives birth to who as badly as the simple 'foolish' women she describes contemptibly.
The constant religious conversations were getting boring by the nine-hundredth time they were run and Zimmer Bradley's constant obsession with not taking sides or making too many snapping comments of Christianity were annoying.
Bradley gives no one a truly happy ending nor a revenge to any of the 'bad' characters and so leaves the reader with a sense of bitter disappointment. Sure, it was nice to read about the very early days of post-Roman england, but for god's sake; I could have picked up a history book and not this waste of time, energy and paper
However, watching Monty Python's Quest for the Holy Grail, is a wonderful cleansing experience after this book...

Am now reading Steve Jones' Almost Like A Whale.

Youre president sucks...

2008-01-02T00:18:00.000+02:00

President Bush acknoledges the existance of CO2. He is quoted to say, "Carbon dioxide, a molecule which contains one atom of carbon bonded with two atoms of oxygen, is a naturally occurring colorless gas exhaled by humans and metabolized, in turn, by plants.As a leading industrialized nation, we can no longer afford to ignore the growing consensus of so many experts whose job it is to study our atmosphere. Carbon dioxide is real."

Do you guys know how fucked up you president is? Was in the kind of acknoledgment the UN gives a new country or is it an umwelt thing; it's just not there until you've acknoledged it.

Then again, if your dad ran around Auschwitz in 1987 saying, "Boy, they sure were big on crematoriums, weren't they?" there's very little surprise about where all this stupid came from...

And speaking of global warming, winter here consists mostly of cold nights, sunny-to-lightly-cloudy days and NO FUCKING RAIN. I hope January's going to be a little better because so far this winter's worse than last year where we hardly saw rain through all of December...

Stuff from life lately

2007-12-27T21:01:00.001+02:00

* 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!

2007-12-21T15:39:00.000+02:00

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?

2007-12-17T11:47:00.000+02:00

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

2007-12-15T09:38:00.000+02:00

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...

2007-12-12T14:24:00.000+02:00

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

2007-12-09T05:30:00.001+02:00

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!

2007-12-05T13:17:00.000+02:00

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

2007-12-04T00:25:00.000+02:00

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

2007-12-03T11:04:00.000+02:00

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...

2007-12-01T22:03:00.001+02:00

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...

2007-11-24T12:04:00.000+02:00

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!!

2007-11-22T13:35:00.000+02:00

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

2007-11-21T12:27:00.000+02:00

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

2007-11-19T20:26:00.000+02:00

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

2007-11-18T09:48:00.000+02:00

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!!

2007-11-16T12:40:00.000+02:00

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)

2007-11-13T19:26:00.002+02:00

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

2007-11-10T20:58:00.000+02:00

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...

News...

2007-11-08T11:17:00.001+02:00

1. Well then, it seems I have a new friend; a caterpillar took one of my cactees and decided to make it its home, awww. So far it's eating its little head off and pooping it all out gloriously (why am I telling you this?!) which earned him the name Mr Poopy Pants:

And here's the source of his name:

2. Sam's going to have a girlfriend!! Yes yes, a ragdoll like him only bicolor and mitted - which puts her under the title of 'pet' and not 'show cat' because such a mix is not something to put in competitions (you don't really love your cat if that's how you see 'em IMO) but that's OK because Sam's got four or five white hairs at the tip of his tail which is also aught to make him lose points in competitions. Bullshit, who gives a damn about cat shows, anyways?
Here's the little critter trying to get my attention as I fumble around Mr Poopy Pants. The sign under the plant says "Do NOT touch the caterpillar" aimed at mom who's a little sensitive about creepy-crawlies.

3. Winter started!! Yesturday it rained for the first time this year, which is mighty reasonable since it is my birthday this Saturday and my birthday always heralds the winter time. I hope this winter will be better than the last one where the rains only really started way into January...

4. Look what I made, it's a bracelet (it was supposed to be a necklace...>.>;;):

5. To the the right of this screen you can see the link bit, where there's a new link to my new flickr account. So far it contains only some of my pictures and I will be adding more monthly (what is up with this silly monthly allowance on pictures?!) so, enjoy them.

6. Oy. The research. I have so much to say - most of it swear words, most of it relating to the Death Railway and other Japanese war crimes in WW2 - about the two Nip bastards who invented the melanin characterization method by spectrophotometer, for choosing Soluene-350 as their solvent. You see, the bastards have enough founding for buying it (hell, they have their own homogenizer) and enough lab equipment for handling melanins for HPLC. I don't and my attempts to sort out the different chemicals for it hit a dead end because of the 16-lettered chemical that's missing and is a big part of the mix. Damn Nips didn't even say why they used that material of all things, they just put it in their protocol and they haven't replied to the emails I sent them both, asking if they found or heard of another solvent.
Spoke to the proff a few minutes ago and I'll be working with photoshop on scaling the hyrax coat colors to see if dominant individuals are more red...damn it, it's anything but what I wanted and it's SO SMALL and meaningless. After Lee, the doctorant who's helping me with the paper, got me all worked up about how an article could come out of this, I was so happy! Great, juuuust great; not only do I hardly need to get to the actual field of study (the field study season is in smack in the middle of the second semester and its test season) but the whole thing just got downscaled like fuck...that sucks so bad, everything I thought my research is going to be is practically gone *le sigh*

Bo-ring!

2007-11-05T21:24:00.002+02:00

Mixed toluene with hydrogen peroxide.

It did not fizz. It did not bang.

Well, poo; I was looking forward for a bit of sparks *sigh*

My prof was as excited about this attempt at explosion as I was and had glitters in his teeny moleman eyes, as he babbled about what not to mix with hydrogen peroxide (which included what the germans used for their V2s) but no such luck happened as to give us the entertainment we wished to unleash upon ourselves.
Apparently, Prof has been mixing and fiddling with chemicals since he was a kid. Suppose all geeks start like that but it's only those who survive the explosions get to university to make great people of themselves. Survival of the luckiest, I guess.

Shark rescue

2007-11-03T18:01:00.000+02:00

If you ignore the hysterically screaming female in the background, this video will seem to you like anything BUT thoughtless human kindness, but it isn't

This is the story behind the video, told by a brave young man showing the bright side of fanatically believing in god.

Dreams...

2007-11-01T10:15:00.001+02:00

Last night I dreamed a plot like I haven't for a very, very long time. It wasn't for something for the stuff I already have but of something new; something between Ratatouille and Keane, with an obsessed young man (who was a Jim Carry-ish Jonathan Rhys Meyers) running around between kitchens on this gigantic far-future ship (not a space ship, an ocean ship) in some sort of a semi-Mau-China regime, trying to order people around on how to cook properly and constantly getting chased around by security guards. Very strange, but very interesting.
I think my brain's trying to tell me it wants to put this lecturers' strike to more creative uses aside from the research.

And speaking of the research, I've hit another, small, step forward; I found out what was the 16-letters-named chemical that is 20-40% of the hair solvent. It's got an only slightly-saner name and it's on Sigma for a reasonable price which is lovely. Now all I need is a chemist to help me mix the damn thing together without exploding the whole faculty...he he he...in fact, it seems this sunday I'm off trying not to blow myself up with toluene and hydrogen peroxide.

Our little wonder boy, Sam, has got a mild throat infection and has been ~~spitting contemptibly~~ taking antibiotics now, again, after having to ~~spit contemptibly~~ take another antibiotics for a small stomach problem the poor bunny had when we got him. Here's the little thing ruining mom's coffee table decoration:

Wishes wishes

2007-10-31T09:14:00.000+02:00

First of all; HAPPY BIRTHDAY,JEN-JEN!!!

The second wish is for this to come to a successful end. We're already eating the sharks out of house and home and when we're not doing that we're making movies about them being ruthless killing machines (and getting their anatomy wrong = great whites don't have nostrils!) and make the world hate them - also known as Well Done, Steven Spielberg Moment #8 - so why use them for sports as well?!

Getting there, I really am

2007-10-28T14:17:00.001+02:00

There are two big problems standing between me and starting to actually do some lab work in my research:

1. The hair-sample solvent is a substance that's just a tad too expensive for my professor. This problem aught to be easily solved since I've got the ingredients list and most of which are stuff you can get at a hardware or pharmaceutical store (except for methanol, my beloved headache-inducing methanol). There are a few bizarre components but all's well. I expect to have this problem solved quite easily as soon as I'll learn how to look chemicals up on the faculty's chemical storing.

2. In order to calibrate the spectrophotometer I'll be using to test pheomelanin dosages, I need a sample of melanin of a known concentration. Ah, tricky. See, I can order melanin from Sigma BUT I'm trying to prove myself resourceful and clever by finding not-so-expensive (I have a lot to prove to my research instructor and professor, what with me being a mere second-year newbie) so I'm thinking, if I find a way to extract melanin from sepia then all I need is find a squid, right?

Well, wish me luck on both goals. Then there's the issue of cutting the hair samples into teeny tiny bits which I have to do manually for over a thousand samples because we don't have a homogenizer the likes of which the two bloody nips who wrote the melanin article had....

Welcome post

2007-10-27T18:13:00.001+02:00

Hello and welcome to my (new-ish) blog!

My name's Meirav Rath and I am exactly what this blog title says; fumbling in life, though I think I'm getting the hang of it now.
I'm a Bachelor's degree student in Biology in the Tel Aviv university. My goal academically, and in life, is to become an animal behavior researcher, and specialize in behavioral ecology or sociobiology (though the latter is what most appeals me). Currently I'm starting my own little research project about pheomelanin as a possible marker for social status in rock hyraxes, one of my favorite animals. Here's a picture of a hyrax, in case you've never seen one.

My top most favorite animals, however, are cats like this little bugger, Sam, my new cat.

I have another academic hobby and I use the word 'hobby' because it's an auto-didactic hobby; I love history and particularly the Second World War, the Holocaust, Ancient Rome, Lawrence of Arabia, Zionism and various other scattered bits of history fancies. Often you'll see here posts about the last history book I read and liked/disliked. In general You'll see a lot of book reviews here.

I also write, when I find the time to do it, and the Livejournal account where I post my fiction and will post more fiction, is on the link page.

That is all, my friends, welcome new readers and old readers alike!

(that's me, BTW)

Not Quite There Yet...

*silent maniac laughter*

My review

Rats!

Boring books, too much work and one eye-candy

My review

Hyena project = complete!

My review

Mommy's little helper

@_@

My review

Book report

My review

Happiness is....

Yup yup

My review

*waves smoke away*

Quick Note

A bit of history

LOL

Cat crib - UR DOING IT WRONG

Happy birthday, Israel

It's been ages.....

Stuffs, many stuffs

Reading list and a book review

Kitties, kitties, kitties

Tests so far and a book report.

The start....and a book report

Oh, the nerdiness

Lab report and progress

Book report and a sweet story

New Legend Chapter, my two cents about humanity, cool science vids

book report and a second project and a break

Research stuff

Fluff and mayhem in Kfar Saba

The puppy response

*is a little stunned*

Sam and Tuli

Posted!!

Animal Behavior, LJ drama, Book Report and kitty picture bombardment

Semester so far & Book report

The two news pieces I promised...

Kitty pictures

I am alive (or so it seems)

Youre president sucks...

Stuff from life lately

Fun Link Time!

D'jya like dags?

A saturday morning's shift boredom

Updates...

*sleep deprived*

Picture post!

Book Report

*dead from the cute*

Henh...

Attack!!

Books and general disgust with human kind

Urban Nature

Birthday post, Sam silliness and movie reviews

It's Fun Link Time!!

Birthdays and books (and a rant)

Birthday post

News...

Bo-ring!

Shark rescue

Dreams...

Wishes wishes

Getting there, I really am

Welcome post

silent maniac laughter

waves smoke away

is a little stunned

sleep deprived

dead from the cute