Life is not shit

She has a face

2007-03-17T22:35:00.000+02:00

Yes, she finally has a face. Who's she, you ask? She's the one. That one. The one who got away, who I never really had to begin with. That one I dreamt about, but then when actually met her found that she was nothing like my dreams.

I'm speaking of a significant other, my friends. And while to some of you that might just be a normal occurrence, it is, in fact, a first for me. I've loved before, at least I think I have. And I've been loved, I think. But this time it was just perfect.

You know those movies, or actually, lately, it's more like commercials for cellphones or credit cards, where the rugged-but-handsome guy sees the girl-next-door on the bus/train/street and they look at each other and smile and blush, leaving it completely obvious that they both fancy each other and it's just a matter of one asking the other? You know those, right? You know how much you hate them, because that always seems like such a load of utter crap.

But it happened that way. I mean, sure, it wasn't as cinematic and we didn't try to sell anything to anyone by the end of it but, by George, I looked at her, and she looked at me and there was something! I couldn't be sure then, of course. How could I know? I've never had something like that. But events unfolded as they do, and we ended up on a date. Seriously, as an aspiring writer, I could not have written it better.

A short description of the date, then. I was nervous. In fact, I hadn't slept much the previous night, or the one before that. This was completely new territory for me. On one hand, I wanted the date to go well, for pretty obvious reasons. I wanted to have someone! I wanted to experience that! On the other hand, if the date didn't go so well, I'd be OK and get over it, go back to my safe routine a bit more experience and confident. Naturally, the latter appealed more to my state. But I knew that just a few short days ago, before I'd asked her out, my world was indeed safe and calm and stress-free, but it was also miserable. And I remembered the fear and worse, the acceptance that I will forever be alone. And now that was gone. I had a shot! So I feared that if the date went well I'd be venturing even further into uncharted waters, but, goddamn it, I was willing to do it! And I did.

The date was amazing. Again, I don't exactly have a plethora of previous experiences to compare it to, but it felt great, exactly how good dates are supposed to go in the rule book. We met at the mall and went down to a quiet coffee shop. We talked and talked and time flew by! At some point people in the shop lowered a huge screen and watched a football (European) match on it. This didn't bother us a bit and, in fact, the game started and was over before we knew it. The only times we even took notice of it was when there was a goal (which occurred 5 times during the match).
After that we went outside and sat on a bench and talked some more. Then we got a cab and I rode home with her. She lives in another city, you see, and I didn't want her to go in a cab alone. So I rode with her and the cab driver was very nice and was praising me all the way, for my gentlemanly conduct. Then we got to her home and I escorted her to the entrance, we we said our goodbyes and had a long french kiss.
That kiss was my first, too.
It felt weird, but since then we've kissed a lot more and it's getting better all the time.

So now I'm in unknown territory. It doesn't feel as odd and I'm not as nervous anymore, but I still have no idea what's to come. All I know is that I like this so far, and whatever may come, I want to experience it.

The night after I asked her out I started getting really nervous and couldn't sleep. So I wrote a poem. Here it is:

She has a face

For so long my head had rested

In the future, yet to be

On a lap, caressed in the grass

Beneath a woman without features

She has a face now

Finally, she has a face

Back to posting

2007-03-09T23:48:00.000+02:00

Well I've decided to post again, fickle person that I am. I've had a surge of inspiration all of a sudden. I'll write more on this tomorrow, probably-I don't want to overload this desolate blog with too much information too fast. But then, things have happened very fast to me. It's hard not to jump ahead of myself and my mind has always been hard to control. But I have to, and I will. For my future's sake. My sanity's.

More will come.
This I vow.

Cleavage

2006-06-28T11:37:00.000+03:00

Yes, that's the title. It's just so hard to bear (get it?)...
All aroud me, every day, women with their cleavage. I don't want to be preoccupied with that! I have a job to do! On the other hand, I really quite appreciate the vistas. But I'm talking about women I know, most of them are students and a lot of them are fine people. How can I give them proper attention if my eyes keep wandering down that crevice? And it's not just at work, it's bleedin' everywhere! You can't walk outside without running into a cleavage. How's a guy supposed to function? This is all rhetorical, mind you. I'm not one of those people who think women should cover themselves. I'm all for self expression, and women, like everyone, should wear what makes them feel good. But then they should not be offended if my eyes drop down while talking to them! I can't help it, it's instinct! It does feel awkward though, I'm helping a young student with her English book, and every now and then my eyes just drop down there and I hope she doesn't notice. She probably does, though. Let's face it, it most likely happens with every guy she talks to. Still, I feel wrong. But that means I should strive to change. If it really bothers me. But I don't think it's worth the effort. Hell, I'll just keep staring, why resist? Would you tell me not to turn around and look at the Mona Lisa if the painting was right behind me? Would I avert my eyes from a sunset? Or a swan? Of course I wouldn't, and this is no different.

Israel's Independence day

2006-05-02T09:45:00.000+03:00

It is once again Israel's Independence day. It is now 58 years old, quite young in country years, I guess. We celebrate our Independence Day right after our Memorial Day, to remember all the soldiers and heroes who died in protecting our home. On one hand this union makes sense, but on the other hand, I've found that a lot of Jewish holidays combine tragedy with happiness in a disturbing way. In fact, according to Jewish belief, the arrival of the Messiah will come only after years and leagues of pain and suffering. Every holiday we have has some sort of bad memory involved in it, in which we were likely almost wiped out by some enemy. I haven't noticed this fact until recently, after reading a short story about the subject. It is a discomforting thing to know, as it points to something very... well, wrong, with the way we think. Now I'm not a religious man and I never will be, but I am part of this religion, part of this society, and what does it say of my people? My brother says that it makes sense; you can't experience true joy if you haven't experienced sadness. And I agree, but that does not mean those two have to come together. We do not need to feel guilty whenever we're happy. This brings me back to Independence Day or, in its Hebrew name, Yom Ha’atzmaut. As far as religion goes, we will not change our customs, but why did these two days, Yom Ha'atzmaut and Yom Hazikaron (Memorial Day), two events that are not religious, have to coincide the way the rest of our religious holidays do? Couldn't we spare a day in the year to remember all our misfortunes, and make a completely different day to be happy?
And now I come to another point, the hypocrisy of remembering and grieving over dead soldiers. You see, practically every day of the year, our mentality, what we're being fed by the army, is that 'it's good to die for your country'. We're being enticed to join fighting units and protect our families, a noble cause, to be sure. But then, on Memorial Day, we cry for those who died, ask 'why did they have to die?' and 'when will the fighting stop?’ Shouldn’t those thoughts occupy our minds all year long, and not only on one day of the year? Am I the only one who sees the hypocrisy? How can you tell a soldier, a person, a child, that it's good to die for this cause, and then cry about his or her death, when they only did what you taught them was right. If it's good to die for your country we should celebrate their deaths not mourn them. Obviously this is crazy, because we miss the people we lose, especially to war, but then it is also crazy to teach these people that it's good to die. It never is.

Jobz!

2006-04-03T18:28:00.000+03:00

I am now making a post from my workplace. I've always deamed of having a job where I had a computer that was online and could chat with buddies or just surf to my enjoyment. Finally that dream is now reality! Up to now I've only had grueling, physical labour. Don't get me wrong! I've nothing against some good old fashioned hard work, but one doesn't make a career out of it. I had worked in a laboratory, feeding labrats and cleaning their cages, I'd cleaned people parking lots and front yards, and probably the most annoying job I've had, working in a sandwich bar. My boss and co-workers were all fine people, but the stress of customers coming to gorge themselves and the infernal amount of cleaning to be done each day made me want to stick my head in the deep-fryer. I'd grown to hate the people who came to eat there, or at least be resentful towards them. I hated myself for being a customers at several of these places in the past, now understanding just how stressful and annoying the job is. To top it all off the place was open at night, and I had the night shift. Ugh. And I would pray that people would stop coming so we could close down the store, but even at 3:00 AM people still came, all drunk from some excersion to a local pub. GO HOME! DON'T YOU SLEEP?! I'd think to myself.
But, in spite of all this, I still had a profound spiritual exiliration at the end of each shift, when my boss would give me a ride home and I'd walk a bit at 5:30 in the morning, with the first light barely touching the horizon and only a few people waking up. That was a good feeling, but it just wasn't worth the hellish torture I had undergone in that sandwich place. So I desperately tried looking for someplace else. Lady luck must've had her gaze upon me, because a job that's right up my ally finally came up. My older brother had been working for 4 years now as a salesperson for an institute called The Wall Street School of English and it just so happened that they needed a new tutor for the facility in my erea! Coming from an English speaking family in Israel, this was no sweat! I went for an interview, turned on the charm and I was in! The hard part would be quitting my sandwich job at such a short notice. And it was hard.
I shy away from confrontations, I'm not good at it and I don't enjoy it. But sometimes it's unavoidable, and that fact became einescapably clear that night I came back to the sandwich place to tell my boss it would be my las shift there. Hell was on the verge of breaking loose. Apperantly, one of my co-workers who would've made my quitting less influential, had gotten himself into militairy prison. So me quitting was just about the most terrible news to my boss, and he reacted appropriately, with anger and frustration and told me 'no, you're not quitting', and then ignored me and went back to work. Throughout the remainder of the evening I tried to pick up the conversation because this would be my last shift, and I didn't care if he didn't pay me at all for the month's work I'd put in, the new job was much more important. I'd managed to soften him up, told him that I wasn't doing any of this out of malice, I had no idea I had to give a notice before I quit (I really had no idea!), and he relaxed and accepted it, and asked if I'd mind coming one last shift a week later, and I said ok, I felt bad for ditching the guy. Then I began my new job, this job, where I'm sitting now and writing this post while stopping every now and then to help a student in need. Finally I feel at home, finally a job I can keep for more than a month, a job I'm actually good at, and not to mention it pays well. The only sour spot is knowing that at some point in the near future I will want to start my university studies, and the study times will likely not fit the busy full-time work schedual. But for now I'm happy and content, I'll leave worries of the future where they belong - in the future.

The dreamer vs. the realist

2005-12-09T09:27:00.000+02:00

There's this rather catchy love song in Israel; translated freely it's called "Everything for you". It's a duet where some guy is singing about the stars and the birds and how beautiful life is, and that he'll find a job and build his love a palace and that they'll live happily ever after. And then the girl compares him to Don Quixote, tells him to wake up and not be so neive, that there's no place in the world for dreamers, and either way he will always be her knight. It's pretty romantic and has a catchy tune, I've personally always liked that song (it's quite old now). It was playing on the radio yesterday and it got me thinking. I know, without a doubt, that I am Don Quixote in that sense. When it comes to romance or a relationship, I'm exactly like that. I envision every romantic scene or gesture and imagine me doing it. I'm also like that in the larger sense. Everything I do has some kind of dreamy thinking behind it. The question is, which person in the song is right? Is Don Quixote right for dreaming? For believing in goodness? Or is his love right, that the world is what it is, and life would be much better without pointless dreams, just living. It's kind of sad, I suppose. I could never stop believing in the goodness of the world, because I've seen and experienced it... and I could never stop being optemistic.. not because I think things will always turn out for the best, but because there's nothing wrong with thinking that way. Whether or not I live happily ever after, why shouldn't I believe I will? Maybe that's what cynicism is all about, really. Not being pessimistic, but rather thinking optemism is futile.

I have a friend

2005-11-04T11:49:00.000+02:00

I have a friend
Somewhere in cyberspace
Or England

I know him as Eltee
He has a real name
But I’m not interested

Eltee writes me poems
About echoes and gardens
And the Midnight Times

Of this I am very jealous
Writing is my passion
I can never be as good as he
In any way, form or fashion

I read his poems
I feel very proud
I sink into depression
A misty, dreary shroud

And now I wrote this piece
A pinnacle of nothingness
To spite myself and others
With my sickly skill

So take this one Eltee
I shove it in your face

A reminder of your greatness
And my lack of grace

Donnie Darko

2005-10-25T17:06:00.000+02:00

I just wacthed Donnie Darko for the second time. DD is the kind of movie people always say you must watch at least twice. And so I did. But what people always say has never applied to another movie as it does to this one. In this second watching I noticed a heap - ah what the hell - a shitload of things I hadn't noticed before. DD is a very good movie but the best way to watch is it the director's cut, which includes some information that makes the movie a bit more understandable. I haven't seen the director's cut yet, but I've seen the specific info which is meant to be in it. But even when I watched the theatrical version for the first time, and my mind was racing to figure out what I had seen, I felt that I understood something, I just wasn't sure of it. That's what drove me crazy, not being sure if I was right or wrong. But I guess in these types of films it doens't matter.
I've got more to say on this but I'm hungry, so it will have to wait.

Doom the movie - Review

2005-10-23T02:34:00.000+02:00

It’s finally out. It might actually be playing in a theatre somewhere in the world right now! The Doom movie, at last! After being tossed between various studios, directors and actors, Doom has finally been made into a movie.
My expectations of the film were pretty low; I didn’t want to get any hopes up. Let’s face it; videogame-based movies aren’t usually the prime examples of good moviemaking, putting it lightly. But I had to go watch it, naturally. I’ve been waiting for this movie for over ten years! Ever since, a long time ago in a forgotten classroom in a forgotten school, my friend showed me an old pc gaming magazine which stated a Doom movie was in the works, starring Arnold Schwarzenegger. As the years went by, this became sort of a running gag between my friend and me. Every now and then we’d remember that article and start wondering when IS the movie coming out, and if the magazine could possibly have been bullshitting. But here we are, several years later and here it is, playing at a cinema near you.
After watching the film, I’m still unsure about it. I can definitely say I like it more than I thought I would, but all in all it’s just a somewhat average or less movie. But I think this is a movie that works well with the ‘what worked - what didn’t work’ way of reviewing, because the film does some things exceptionally well, things that brought a huge smile to my face, and some things were just a regrettable miss. From the beginning, when the huge movie title covers the entire screen, the Doom logo we all know and love, I could tell that this movie knew where it was coming from. It knew its heritage, and it was joyfully flaunting it. I’m going to try and refrain from spoilers, even though there’s not much that can actually spoil the film as it’s pretty predictable. Nevertheless, here’s your spoiler warning. If you absolutely want to know nothing about this film before you watch it, you’d better stop reading or just skim through it and hope you don’t catch something you don’t want to know.
Firstly, the location design for the movie is superb. It looks like it was taken right out of the game (Doom3, that is - the game this movie is based on). The corridors, the labs, even the computers bare a huge resemblance to the game. The little touches are what I really love about it, because it lets me know, as a Doom fan, that these people aren’t just a collection of folks who banded to make a movie out of a title they’d never seen or heard of before. Watching this movie, you can tell someone actually has played the game. And it’s not just the location. It’s the music, which I thought at first was the game’s soundtrack. It’s also the weapons. Each marine has some weapon that features in the game, from the pistol to, yes, the BFG. Apparently the BFG stands for Bio Force Gun, but The Rock calls it for what we know it as; Big Fucking Gun. Another touch which tells you the people who made this film know Doom. Maybe not as well as we do, but they know it, and it’s great watching this. Another thing which I loved was this guy on a futuristic wheelchair thingy, he tells everyone to just call him ‘pinky’. If you’ve played the game you know what this guy turns into.
It’s clear that this movie was made by people who have played Doom and know what it’s about. Why, then, oh why, did they have to change the plot? Don’t get me wrong, the plot in the movie is surprisingly decent for this type of film. It’s not ‘just’ a virus or some shit, and they even managed to insert the good vs. evil thing. But really, no matter how good their plot is, it just can’t beat the ‘portal to hell’ plotline. It just can’t. If these creatures were from hell, if they were demons, if there was a portal to hell they’d have to find, the movie would have been so much better. The whole first section of the movie feels more like Aliens than anything else. Not much action, just random gunfire at shadows that lurk about. Then it feels a bit like a zombie movie. Another problem I found with it is that when people have to turn into these things, it limits how many monsters you can have at a time. If they were all from hell, you could have a legion of these things with no problem whatsoever. Also, avoiding the hell plotline, they pretty much passed on using all the hell related scares we could’ve had. What’s supposed to scare us now is the occasional severed organ or the lurking shadows. But Hell would’ve given us a whole range of things to be scared of. I really don’t know why, seeing as they really did play the game, they didn’t stick with the plot. Maybe they wanted something of their own, or maybe they were afraid religious groups would ban it. Who knows? It’s just a shame.
There’s quite a bit of dialogue and it’s not all bad, but, while I appreciate the attempt at giving this film more depth, it’s just not needed. What I want from Doom is a massacre of hellish proportion. The building of tension is redundant. The hero, John ‘Reaper’ Grimm, has some bad memories from Mars, where his parents died or something. But this is never really fully addressed. We see he’s troubled, and getting flashbacks or whatnot, but it’s just there for no reason and doesn’t affect much of anything. Reaper also has issues with his sister, a scientist in the Mars facility, which are also trivial. The only truly good part of suspense is watching how The Rock’s character, Sarge, slowly degrades from a cool, calm and collected officer to something of a lunatic.
The action, as mentioned before, is sparse throughout most of the film, with the largest and most impressive action reserved for the finale. This brings us to the best part of the movie, the 5 minute or so scene everyone who knows about this movie wants to see; the First Person Shooter sequence. This sequence is original, fresh, exciting, cool and very well executed. I was largely impressed by it when it was over. But that’s not why I loved it so much. Even if it had been a flop, an embarrassment and a mistake, I would’ve loved it. Because, more than anything, it felt like Doom, and again it showed that these people just knew what they were doing. They knew what game this was, its fan base and what it did for computer gaming. They threw caution to the air and put something that was there purely for the Doom fans, because anyone who hasn’t played the game would not get it. And the sequence is good. It occurs near the end of the movie, from Reaper’s point of view. It’s like looking at a gameplay trailer for Doom4 with the graphics turned all the way up. They did everything. They even did the weapon reload which I loved. The music in that sequence is especially good. It was such a beautiful homage to the game, and such a good sequence, that it alone is reason enough to watch the film. I hope no one starts copying this thing, because I doubt it can work anywhere else.
The final action scene, ‘between good and evil’, is a bit of a letdown. It starts good enough but eventually seems a tad forced when they start to fight without weapons, ‘honorably’. It’s a good scene but I expected something a bit more climatic. The ending itself is also a letdown. I hate it when there’s no closure or anything resembling that. He just beats the bad guy, and 5 seconds later ‘THE END’. I like something after that, a moment to catch your breath, look around, see what you’ve done. The end credits are awesome though.
All in all, like I said at first, this movie does some things incredibly well and some things it misses. It is enjoyable, however, especially if you’re a Doom fan. So go watch it at least once. If you don’t like it, no one’s going to make you watch it again.

Battle of Darrowshire

2005-10-15T08:39:00.000+02:00

This title has absolutely no meaning. I was thinking about what the title should be and I left clicked it with my mouse. Suddenly a bunch of things I have no recollection of writing sprung up on a list. So I selected this title because it's the name of a quest from World of Warcraft. The quest is also meaningless to me, although it was fun. In any case, a battle for something is always interesting so here it is.
Life is not shit. Remember that.