Archive for February, 2003
Finally Home!
Continue reading ‘Finally Home!’Aunt still in hospital
It’s been a week, it looks like at least 2. The past week was really hectic. My aunt Ester is still in the hospital, here in Jerusalem, and I’m almost the whole day with her there. My cousins are coming and going too, but since I can be available much more (and even if I go to fix stuff or study or anything, I’m still just 15 minutes drive away), I’m with her every day until they kick me out of the intensive care room.
She went through a cardiac catheterization last thursday morning, but in the middle of the operation got into antifilactic shock (extreme condition of alergy) and then had to stop everything and stabelaze her. She’s now getting many drugs to prepare here for a second catheterization tomorrow, hopefully along with treatment. I haven’t been around a single computer since I’ve wrote the previous entry, and only came to the lab to send several important emails and have a look at the “damages” caused by my disappearnace. I’m going back to the hospital in a few minutes.
Hopefuly, if everything will be alright, I’ll drive back to Ashkelon on Tuesday. I’ll update everything back then. I’ve also wrote some notes about the 13th and the 14th legs of the race, but I have no time no to update it. Keep sending me “get well” SMSs to my aunt, I’m showing her each and every one of them, they make her laugh! 
It’s Tuesday today and it’s been a hectic week so far. A new semester started, with new courses and lots of stuff to study. I also need to incorporate an new code inside the xonix game to allow information exchange using SMS, and organizing an IGDA chapter meeting on Thursday. Then, in the middle of all this, my mom called. My aunt Ester had a heart attack on Sunday night and is now in the hospital. I was suppose to go to Ashdod today, but since they are moving her to Hadassa Hospital, here in Jerusalem, I’ll probably stay here and act as a ‘local base’ for the family. My mother is currently with her in the ambulance moving her here, I’ll probably join them later and take my mom to my apartment to rest before she’ll go. My cousins are suppose to come here also, so I’m planning to make a copy of my apartment key, to allow them more flexibility, and a place to sleep (if I’m not here during the weekend). (Hmm… A wierd thought, but I probably better go home and clean my room. It’s a huge mess with a little clean place to sleep, right now…)
I think I’ll call off the IGDA chapter meeting for this week, we’ll do it next week. I’ll have to email everybody again.
Oded left me a comment saying “Hi, Nice site. Say, don’t you think that you reveal yourself a little too much?! any way, keep having fun.”
Well, Oded, I don’t think I’m being exposed more then I wish to. First, the days when my webcam broadcasted 24/7 were over pretty fast, and now I just grab a picture I like more and leave it of for the whole week (or more, depends when I’m doing the weekend at home with my parents). About posts, you can notice, most of them are dealing more with my opinions then with my actual daily life. I admit that some of the pictures in the gallery might be a little personal, but they’re pretty old now, anyway.
The people coming to my site are divided in 3 – my close friends, people from google/other search engine, and (very) small group of regulars. All these together still only ends up in about 100 people a day, that’s all. If you’ll take into consideration that about 85% of the people come from google as a result of a general search, and does not really care who am I personally, then who do I expose myself to, anyway? My friends? The few regulars?
From reading this ‘weblog’ you don’t get all the information on what’s going on in my life – they’re much more full. You do get my opinions and SOME glimpses to my regular life. But no, Oded, I’m defiantly not expositing myself too much.
An interesting thread on Global Affrias forum resulted in several interesting points. Here are some:
- Omar (from Jordan), one of the regulars and moderate guys, said this:
“It’s great that Russia, is so selfless in their demands for a peaceful resolution to this situation.
Russian business has long-standing interests in Iraq. Lukoil, the biggest oil company in Russia, signed a $20bn contract in 1997 to drill the West Qurna oilfield. Such a deal could evaporate along with the Saddam regime, together with a more recent contract with Russian giant Zarubezhneft, which was granted a potential $90bn concession to develop the bin Umar oilfield.
And the French of course, wouldn’t be holding out for a better deal, they just want world peace (haha):
If it comes to war, France is determined to be allotted a more prestigious role in the fighting than in the 1991 Gulf war, when its main role was to occupy lightly defended ground. Negotiations have been going on between the state-owned TotalFinaElf company and the US about redistribution of oil regions between the world’s major companies.
Isn’t it funny that the list of countries opposed to US action, reads like a laundry list of countries that currently have ties to the 110 Billion Barrels of oil confirmed reserves in Iraq?
This is a war to secure the oil reserves, but the US is not alone in being greedy and self interested. Everyone wants a piece of the pie.
The Saudi Royal family is on borrowed time, securing the oil supply now will help deflect the pending uncertainty. It will also give the US and Britain leverage, over the country that spawned the majority of the 9/11 hijackers.
The war on Iraq is a covert war on the Saudi influence, and on middle eastern oil as a whole. The American’s hands are surely not clean, but they’re not the only wolves in this cellar…”
- A more aggressive speculation was brought up by in an interesting post by Den Beste on his Weblog:
Continue reading ‘The France Anti-War issue’
Yesterday was HARD! I drove from Ashkelon to Petah-tikva to take 2 mattresses to my cousin Sagit. Then drove to Tel Aviv for an Interview day in ACC, the leading copywriting school in Israel. I thought it will just be an interview that will be over in 5-10 minutes. Instead the whole process took almost an hour. We were 9 people invited for that day, we were divided into 2 groups – one was sent upstairs for personal interviews, the second (me included) stayed in the room. Tirza Granot, the school manager, came and started doing ‘creativity tests’. We were handed papers and pens and then it started.
The first ‘test’ was like this: Each of us got a word, and we had to write what-ever we want (story, poem, song…) that includes this exact word 13 times. I got the word ‘chair’. Damn. I first thought of writing a short paragraph about a couple going to buy a chair, and the seller shows them 12 chairs and name each, but I figured I’ll be labeled a smart-ass, so I wrote a part of a script about an investigation in a police station, with 2 scenes. I hope it was nice enough.
Afterwards came the second ‘test’.
Continue reading ‘Copywriting Interview day’
I was suppose to sleep at my cousin’s Sagit tonight, but as I was driving to Petah-Tikva I got a call from the copywriting school that my interview is only scheduled to 17:00. So, as I was not that far from home, I did a U turn and got back home to sleep over here. The night was tough, anyway. It’s damn cold and the rain hardly stop. My poor dog, Leonardo, is stuck in his dog cabin most of the day without playing. He got warm blankets there and a bottle of hot water we fill every night (Actually, he usually refuse to leave he cabin and get inside the house).
I’ve basically completed the first MIDP game (game for mobile phones), which is a xonix clone. I still need to run it on more emulators and then send it over to the guys at Austria to check it on a real phone. My next game is going to be a surfing game. I hope the fps rate will be good enough…
As you see in the picture, I received the Civil Defence booklet form the Home Front Command, though I was much more worried today to read that Men got ticking biological clocks, too, and that my sperm fertility is reduced by 50% from age 20 to age 30. Damn it, I gotta get someone pregnant while I still can!
I’ve updated 2 posts on my site, both will keep on being updated in the future. The first is my one going thoughts about the TV show The Race, and the second is a list of SMS messages I get from people through this site.
Continue reading ‘Civil Defence Booklet and more’
As I’m writing this, Powell is in the UN, showing evidence that Iraq not only not cooperating with the inspections, but they currently have biological and chemical weapons, then have at least 7 biological weapons factories that are mobile on 18 trucks and that they still hold on to their weapons! The Us already got the support of most Europe, except Germany and France.
If you ask me, this whole circus is just mocking the U.N. This whole crisis situation is highlighting the irrelevance and impotence of the UN. Why Germany is acting so dumb, I can only relate to pacifism. I do have things against pacifism, but on this case I’m willing to let Germany off the hook. If Germany promises not to be involved in any war for the rest of it’s existence it’s all fine with me. The last 2 wars Germany was involved (involved? RESPONSIBLE) ended up with a badly wounded world. I guess they are acting out of guilt, which is fine by me, this guilt is justified.
Continue reading ‘Powell, UN, Germany and France thoughts.’
I’ve recently, thanks to Diana, I’ve found salam’s blog. this is the first blog I read by an Iraqi guy and it was really interesting to see how things are perceived on the other end. Here is a little quote (taken from a post from Jan. 14th) :
- “Do you think there will be a war, what do people think?
That is a tough one, I can’t tell you whether there will be war or not. I look around me and see two governments gearing themselves up for it. Someone wise once said “don’t look at what a politician’s lips are saying, look at what his hands are doing”. What it looks like is War. Slow deliberate moves on both sides. One side is entrenching, in what seems to be constant denial of what has happened 10 years before and very probable defeat, the other side, well, we are hearing the words massive, huge and for the first time since [enter your chosen historical war landmark here] too many times. And what do people think? We need change desperately. The few attempts and people who would have had a chance to do something about the way the government is have been ruthlessly eliminated since the late seventies, by the late eighties Iraq was Saddam-land no real challenger was anywhere in site. After the Gulf War there were a couple of uprisings here and there, none were organized properly. All were quickly and brutally wiped out, not only the people involved but all their families. Change is not going to come from inside, unless the government somehow implodes, for example, saddam’s death creating a rush and fight amongst possible successors to take his place and giving other parties/people space to act. I am not holding my breath.”
That same post also answers questions like – What will happen after the war?, What alternatives are there to saddam?, In case of a war, can’t you leave the country before it happens?, If not will you stay in Baghdad or can you go somewhere else? and others.
Unfortunately, the Iraqi ISP have blocked all access to many sites, including blogger, so Salam cannot update his site anymore. Still, the archives and current posts are really interesting if you really want to have a glance at the story from an iraqi perspective. Check it out.
Continue reading ‘An Iraqi Blogger Perspective’
Well, I found it’s extremely nice to get SMS from people around the world. I’ve decided I’ll take a picture of each SMS and post it on a special gallery, so I could save them without really having to fill my mobile phone memory. I won’t of course, take picture of really personal emails, but I’ll make an effort to read to all of them even if I won’t save them on the gallery.
It’s really fun getting messages in the middle of the day, specially when they say nice things… I must admit there were a couple of others which I erased by mistake before managed to capture or document. Anyway, if you got something to tell me ANY TIME, and you can put it in 108 characters, send me an SMS now!
Anyway, here are the msgs I got (and some reactions from me):
Continue reading ‘SMSs I recently got (and my reactions)’
HOLY MOSES! HOLY MOSES! HOLY MOSES!!!
I’m watching now live at the debris of the Columbia Space shuttle as they are falling above texas!!! Seems the Shuttle, also carring the first Israeli astronaut Ilan Ramon, had – for some reason – exploded in the atmosphere!!! Chances of any of the astronauts to be found alive – Slim!
I’m running back to the TV to see how it develops! I hope the astronauts managed to eject in time. (Hey, is it only my bad hearing or did the reporter just say it exploded over palestine, Texas?!)
CNN Coverage
BBC Coverage
Ynet Coverage (hebrew)
Not surprising, but the Iraqis are very happy about the whole thing.
Continue reading ‘Columbia crushed on entering Earth!’
Science Articles
Some scince links worth checking out:
Physics and Space:
Europe considers its future in space – Hail Venus! Is There Life Here? – Shuttle sees smoke shape clouds (major fire on Earth can alter global climate)
Biology, Genetics & Evolution:
Fetal tissue transplants improve adult sight – Shorter telomeres mean shorter life – Ultrasound blasts away tumour cells – Cavemen’s taste for milk revealed – Eat more, weigh less, live longer? – High vitamin A raise bone fracture risk – Wings Aplenty: Dinosaur species had feathered hind limbs – Another Dad-Flick, and Guys Are Crying
Computers & Technology:
Random chat solves distributed problem – Computer user suffers “eThrombosis” – Innovative Cars Which you can’t get (yet) – How About an Urban Aerial Utility Vehicle? – Here Come the Two-Legged Aibos – Norway MP plays PDA game during war debate
Political:
Ehud Ya’ari: Beware of a ‘Farhoud’ – David Warren: No ambiguity – Caught on Tape
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