The Search Goes On

Ok here's a summary of all that occured since my last post...

The trip there:

I packed my bags and said my final good byes (which Aner interupted with a phonecall), this was it, I was leaving home for the first time and hopefully the last. I'm pretty sure my mom was close to tears but she didn't wanna make a scene, so a kiss at the door and I was on my way. A bag on my back and a smaller one on my front, an all together wheight of 30kg, heavy stuff. It seemed like the world knew I was leaving, 15 minutes after leaving my house I arrived at the buss stop and about 5 minutes later a friend of mine from school whom I hadn't seen in almost a year drove by and stoped to talk for a few minutes. He was gone for barely 5 minutes when another good friend of mine drove by, Dror, he was my best friend from 6th grade till 10th grade and lately I hadn't seen him very often, he's in the army. I sat down in the buss stop after he left and my cellphone rang, it was no other than one of my best friends from 9th-10th grade, I hadn't talked to him in a few years.

Ok I finnished my bizzar reunion and finaly the buss came. Ok now the first sign that this was going to be quite a different buss ride than what I'm used to was the fact that the buss driver asked me to get on the buss, with all my things, through the back entrance. I got in, the buss was stuffed, I payed (I hate paying for busses) and sat down next to some sleeping guy. A few minutes pass and the sleeping guy stirs, eventualy he wakes up and then he askes me something. Now I've learned to be polite and all that crap but this was a test of my patiance, a drunk russian guy who smelled strongly of alcohol and only spoke Russian and a tiny bit of Hebrew was trying to start a conversation with me. It was funny, sad and annoying all at once, he was trying to tell me something but all he was managing to do was draw atention to himself and make himself look absolutely stupid. After a half hour of gruesom hand laguage and sound effects, I finaly managed to understand him, "I want my children to go to the army and fight", that's what he tried to tell me. Ok I got the point, it's important for him that his kids not only go to the army but also go to a fighting unit, a minute after I finally understood him, the person in front of us turns around and tells him something in Russian, then turnes to me and sais, "he was trying to tell you that he wanted his kids to fight in the army", Oh yea thatnks a lot, couldn't you have told me that 45 minutes ago when I was trying desperately to understand the rantings of a drunk Russian man; I didn't tell him that but that's what I was thinking.

The ride goes on and the buss is now totally full, a lot of people were standing but they all seemed capable of standing on their own two feet. Mid way an old lady gets on the buss, I watched her slow progress towards me and the whole time I was thinking, "Please let someone get up to let her sit...", but she kept getting closer and still no one was geting up for her so I did the inevitable, I got up and let her sit in my place. Another 45 minutes to the buss ride and I stood the whole way, well at least I wasn't next to the drunk Russian anymore.

What Happend There:

I got off the buss and called Aner, as usual he was late, I went to Tslil, the store he and Kobi work in, Kobi was there with Miriam, they kept me company for the next few hours while Aner was finishing buisness (why is it Aner's always late?).

Over the course of the next few days the three of us went over a million different appartments and did a million other things that were nessaccery for renting an appartment, it's not an easy proccess, at least not as easy as it seems at first.

Time was passing but still no appartment could be found that suited our needs and was affordable as well, we wern't about to give up but we were getting desparate. Hours turned into days, days turned into weeks and eventualy two weeks had passed, still no appartment, I was both getting home sick (or at least I missed the food at home) and sick of not having a space of my own; I needed a vacation.

My Vacation:

I invited the whole gang (Aner, Kobi, Faduh, Omrry, Daled, Krupnik and Catcher) over to my house for a huge dinner Friday night. Not all of them came (Krup and Catcher didn't come) but Aner brought his girlfriend (Shani) and Omrry brought a friend of his (Sinay) so all in all we were quite a few people. Dinner was three types of chinees food with rice and spaghetie on the side and a ton of other yummy food, then came dessert, two apple pies and brownies; it was a dinner that I'll remember for quite a while.

We gave the food some time to settle in our stoumachs and three hours later we were out. Now there are some things that I can't write here so I'll just put this remark to remind me of that night, "This car is a grasshopper and not a motercycle" (I don't expect anyone to understand that unless they were there that night, 1 car, 9 people, you do the math). Let me just hope that I have more nights like that one. The night was brought to a wellcomed end to to everyone being dead tired, it wasn't a sad ending, on the contrary, it was a perfect ending for a most enjoyable evning. Sleep was good and welcomed, it was the first night in two weeks that I was sleeping in a bed alone and it was even my own bed.

The next day is was only Omrry, Sinay and me, everyone els left. We took our time waking up and at some point Krupnik came over, we decided to go up to Mount Tavor (a mountain near my house with ainchent ruins on its peak and a big old church from midevil days. It could just be me but I find the air up there much more enjoyable, up there I feel strangly alive. Anyway, we explored the mountan top for a few hours and sometime early morning we headed back towards home. On the way I decided to give my friend Aviad a call, I hadn't seen him in ages and it's a shame because I concider him one of my best friends. Aviad was home and bored so we dropped of Krupnik at home so he could get up the next day for the army and unloaded ourselves at Aviad's doorstep... I don't think I've ever been lectured like I was that day, Omrry, Sinay and Aviad spent about 2 hours picking my brain about the appartment in Natanya. At the end of their lecture I had to admit that I hadn't thought it all out as well as I had thought and it suddenly seemed like a stupid idea. The hardest part was admiting defeat, I was so convinced that I was doing the right thing, that it was hard to undo the procces that I had begun.

Omrry and Sinay left that night so I was left with my thoughts. I decided that I would cancel the moving proccess the next day. Sure enough tomorow came and I made the neccassery phoncalls and cancled the move. Aner and Koby took it surprisingly well and then everyone els told me that it was better I stayed home (why couldn't they have said so 2 weeks earlier?).

That about summs up the events of January, more updates comming soon!

Leaving Home

The week started out like any other, I roamed around the house for the first few days but then it got better, Thursday I went to Natanya to my friends house to start actual looking for an apartment.

The Trip There:

Daled (the one I helped throw up at my party) came over to bring back a book, take a few CD's with some things for her new computer and say hi in the process. I tried to catch Aner on the phone all morning to ask when I could come over, I finally woke him up at around 2:00pm and he said I could come at around 3pm. Daled and I left my house at 2:30 and hitchhiked to Afula (I need a drivers license), the guy who picked us up was smoking a joint the whole way and listening to Pink Floyd, it was the Stoners Mobile. We got to Afula just in time for my buss so no long goodbyes, I ran to the buss just in time, I paied my money and sat down. The buss drive went by fairly quick, so quick in fact that I nearly missed by stop. I was reading a book which also happens to be one of the strangest books I've ever read but that's not our subject for today. Anyway, I was so consumed by trying to understand the book that I didn't notice we had arrived at my buss stop till the buss closed the doors and was about to continue driving. After a semi embarrassing escape from the buss I called Aner and found that he hadn't even made a start at leaving his girlfriends house, to start the search with me for an apartment.

What We Did There:

I was at the other side of the country and my host wasn't home so I called out third room mate, Koby, he just got back from school ("hashlamat bagruyot" he just needs to complete a few tests to actually have his highschool diploma, he finished school 3-4 years ago.). I walked the not so short walk over to his house and there we started our search for an apartment. We must have searched 15 different Israeli websites that advertise apartments, we only found about 4 apartments though that seemed in our price range and the size we wanted. Finally at 6pm Aner with his girlfriend got back to Natanya, we met them at a pizza place right next to the place they were dropped off and ate a pizza pie. Then we called the first apartment we planned on going to see. In the add the apartment was said to have 3 bedrooms but when we got there we found that the supposable 3 bedrooms were the kitchen, living room and one bedroom, we left that place in a hurry and started calling the rest of the list to find out if by 3 bedrooms they meant 1, 2 or actually 3. We found out that none of them actually had 3 bedrooms, we weren't about to give up yet, we had only started!

We decided to roam the streets and look for "For Sale/For Rent" signs, after a bit over an hour we had found a few signs and looked at a couple more apartments but nothing really good for us. Aner decided we should take a detour around some building and see if maybe it had any apartments for rent, we walked around it and sure enough it did. We called and after a few minutes they arranged for one of the nabours to open it up for us to take a look at the apartment, not only was in about 30 feet from where they work but it was a great apartment! The electric was shut off so we looked around the apartment with the light from our lighters, it had 3 big bedrooms, a huge living room/patio, a nice and big kitchen, 2 bathrooms and it was in great condition, as an added bonus it also was partly furnished including a washing machine, a refrigerator, 2 stoves and 2 ovens. We loved the apartment but were readying ourselves for a disappointment as soon as we thought about the cost of living in such a place. We called the owners once again to assure them that we were 100% interested and then we asked the price...*deep breath*...*exhale*...$580 a month!!! That was only $30 more expensive that most the other apartments we had looked at and this one was 100 times bigger and better!

The Final Results:

We arranged for a meeting with the owners brother for the next morning, his sister who owns the place lives about 2 hours away so she couldn't meet up in person. Her brother met us 8:15am and took us to have another look at the place in the daylight so we could actually see the apartment and go over some things with him. I'll spare you the details, till this moment I'm still thinking how this is too good to be true. We left the apartment and I stayed around a few more hours after we left the apartment so that Aner and Koby could open up the disc store they work in. We hung around and talked about our near future in our soon to be apartment, we called the owner and arranged a meeting for Saturday night to go over the contract and a few other things concerning the apartment. That means that tonight we're gonna be doing the finishing touches before our move and within the next few days we're going to be in our new apartment!

Wish us luck, we may need it!


I'll be back to update on the apartment situation sometime this week!

How Dumb Is This

World's Dumbest Town Vows To Raise IQ

Tuesday February 24, 2004
The people of Cooley, Australia, have had it with their image as the world's dumbest town. So they've embarked on an ambitious program of study to raise their average IQ by at least 20 points...

For the full article Click Here

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You should take a few moments to read that article, it sounds like a made up story, some kind of comedy or something but it's true!

Home Alone

Let's get up to date on last weekend events.

It's Tuesday, I've finally recovered from the weekend so I figured I better write them now or forever keep silent.

My mom had her birthday this week (1/6/2005), she turned 46-49, I stopped counting when she was 37. Her and my dad decided to go to their friends on the other side of the country for the weekend, that meant that me and my brother would have the house to ourselves from Thursday till Monday...PARTY!

Me and my little brother started inviting friends, finally Friday afternoon, we both had about 6-8 friends invited each. One of my friends works as a barman so he got us a lot of alcohol for free and finally everyone came and the party began. My brother and his friends all got drunk so me and my friends entertained ourselves by watching them and doing a few things of our own. My brother broke his friends cellphone, he got a black and blue cheek for it and then he decided to throw his cellphone at one of my friends who wasn't very happy about it. I made a really good lemon drink with a LOT of alcohol and it tasted really good so me and my friends drank and drank and drank and drank and, well you get the picture. Everyone was busy with one thing or another and it was an enjoyable evening. Finally 4-5am everyone except me were asleep in random spots in the house. I helped one of the girls that I invited throw up half the morning and finally went to sleep myself.

11am I was awake and on my feet, breakfast would be needed soon so I started preparing, 18 eggs, pancakes, milowach, avocado salad and other breakfast things. It only took till 1pm till it was all ready and I had a breakfast to feed the 9 people who stayed to sleep over, man do I make a good breakfast! Everyone ate till they could eat no more and then kept eating till the food was gone, I sat for the first time since Friday morning and smoked a cigarette in peace. Everyone else pitched in to do the dishes and clean the house, by 5pm everything was clean and people started leaving, 6pm only me and my brother remained, we valued the quietness more than we expected. I was on the verge of going to sleep and a friend on mine decided to come visit with his future to be girlfriend. 2am I got them to leave and I went to bed....FINALLY!

The next day me and my brother washed the house and finished cleaning anything that needed cleaning, my parents got home and everyone went to bed.

That was my weekend, not bad, not bad at all.

My Ice Cold Toilet Seat

How cold I am,
How warm I'll be,
When I get off this toilet seat,
Cold as Ice,
It was to touch,
But I'll stay down,
And warm it up,
When I'm done,
I'll leave behind,
What I let out,
What's no longer mine,
I'll leave the room,
In moments time,
Fresh air I seek,
Fresh air I shall find.



Hey it happens, what can I say?
I was sitting on the toilet and it came to me, I couldn't get it out of my head. It would have crept in my mind forever if I didn't write it down no matter how rediculas it was, so now you people get to read it! Even more rediculas is the time I spent making the picture of the frosty toilet seat through the frosty window...Hope you're enjoying it!

How Low Can You Go

[Quote]
You know how sometimes you feel like you haven't posted anything to your blog for a while, and you should really get around to doing it, but there's nothing to really write about? We've all been there. That's why we at flooble have decided to give you an Instant Blog Post Generator.

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"Yesterday my parents were talking to someone about education among Japanese schoolgirls. They were really disturbed by that stuff, so they went to ask my friend Dom about it, and he was like:
'No way!.. Oh man! Don't tell me you're into Japanese schoolgirls too!'
But then when my parents got to the part about the education, Dom stopped yelling. Then later, Dom's mother told me that the reason Dom was so freaked out was because he had to study education in class. Sometimes Dom can be very cool like that, but he kinda loves me... "
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[/Quote]

Well besids that being totaly and utterly stupid, I have to admit that though it did give me something to write about.

What next?

The automated friend, "You know how some days you just wake up and feel like you need a new friend? Well we've got a solution for you, Automated Friend, you press a buttun and we do the rest. If you're not happy witht he results then just make a new one..."
Technolagy is sucking out our imagination!
Soon we won't need to do anything, just sit back and let computers think for us. I wonder when the first computer written novel will come out, then computers can write books for us, make movies, think of new ideas...We won't have to do anything!

And Time Stands Still

You know how when you're waiting for something, you're exited, you can't wait for whatever it is to happen already but time has a way of standing still. Well according to that theory, this is going to be a long week or two. Every second, of every minute, of every hour, of every day, goes by like a lifetime and it gets worse the longer the wait gets. It feels hopeless, I'm likely to loose my mind or die of old age by the time the week is over. Sleep seemed like a good solution to my problem but how much can a man sleep?
The answer to that is, Very long, very long indeed but not long enough.

Let me try to describe something using a metaphor (if you can consider it a metaphor)...
I can safely assume that anyone reading this has had a craving for something delicious, not just any craving but the kind where you want something so badly that it's driving you crazy except you don't know what it is you want. In most cases when this happens to me, I have a bite of everything that looks appealing at the moment and eventually I forget about my craving either because something else distracts me or I go to bed. Another solution to these cravings can sometimes be a cigarette but it doesn't always help. The trick is that nothing in this world or any other for that matter, will satisfy the craving, I just need to let it pass on its own and occupy myself in the time being.
Well this is kinda like what I'm feeling just with no connection to food, I'm bored out of my mind and nothing seems to satisfy my craving for something interesting. I go from computer to TV, then I take a walk, I eat something, try to read a book, try to do something creative, consider cleaning my room and then eventually I call friends who are all out of my reach, they're either in the army, busy with school/work or they live an hour and a half away. You should hear my conversations with my friends, "Hello again...*person speaks*...oh nothing really, I'm just bored....*person speaks*...well If you don't have anything to say and I don't have anything to say then I'll talk to you later...*person speaks*...Call me if anything interesting comes up!"
The thing is, no matter what I try to do, nothing keeps me pleased and for some reason I hold myself back from going out; Sad what I've reduced myself too...

You could say I was doing better when I was supposed to be looking for a job, at least then I had a purpose, a goal, now I'm just waiting for my friends to find an apartment and bring themselves to move into it, until then, I'm stuck here...

I think I need a girlfriend, that could keep me busy, happy and less horny.

PS,

I don't think I mentioned, we didn't get the apartment in the end.

Typical Male Blogger

I just read that 56% of blog owners are woman, I can live with that, no big deal but then I read that most male blog owners abandon their blogs in its early stages, unlike most woman. Now I feel obligated to not abandon my blog, if I do I'll just be a typical male, that sucks, I hate being a typical anything.

I know myself, once I feel obligated to something then I tend to not enjoy it anymore, it's ruined many of my hobbies.
For example, I used to constantly do Digital Art, till one day I decided to try to earn a bit of money from my hobby. The moment I had customers and I was working for people and not my own pleasure, the hobby became a task that I no longer enjoyed. It didn't take long till I almost entirely stopped doing digital art.

Same thing happened with RPG's (Role Playing Games), I used to RP on a regular basis, *I Role Played in a form of multi author writing where each person is responsible mostly for his own character that he created and together everyone participating builds a full grown story*. eventually I had become a critical part of the stories and people had to wait for me to respond inorder for them to continue, I then felt obligated to continue and found myself forced to write even when I wasn't in the mood and eventually I stopped RPing. I tried to RP about 4 more times but each time I felt obligated once more as soon as the story went on, a couple weeks ago I stopped RPing for the fourth time.

Those were only 2 examples, they go to show that if this becomes an obligation then no matter how much I enjoy writing, I will eventually stop enjoying it unless I find a way to come over this feeling of obligation. Interaction with other people who shine some kind of opinion on my writing, is one way to keep me interested longer but I'm doubtfull as to how many people will actually read this. I think the best way to keep me interested would be to only write when I either have something to write about or am in the mood. I need to stop thinking of the blog as a dayly task and more as, "Oh I should write about that", followed by me writing whatever it is I thought about. Well being I'm writing this to myself anyway, I shouldn't feel too obligated, I may be making a big deal out of this for nothing.

Just another Joe

I will have to live with the fact that:
I'm not the smartest man alive.
I'm not the most attractive man alive.
I'm not the strongest man alive.
I'm not the most gifted artist alive.
There are things I will never do.
There are places I will never be.
There will always be someone who hates me.
Not everyone loves me.
I'm not good at everything.
I will never please everyone.
Not everyone will always agree with me.
People I know will eventually die.
I will not always be young.
One day I too will be old.
I will never get 3 wishes.
I have hurt people down the line.
Things will not always go my way.
I have made mistakes in my past.
I will make mistakes in my future.
I have my flaws.
I will never like everyone.
I do not know half the things I'd like to know.
There are people who can sing better than me.
There are people who have more money than me.
There are people who are more creative than me.
There are people who are more original than me.
I do not do things as good as I'd like to.
I am just another person out of 6 billion.

I'm glad that that's the way life works, imagine you had everything you wanted, what would be the fun in that?
So yes I will have to live with the fact that I'm just another Joe but I can always strive for more, it's what give life a meaning, enjoy what you can of life and who knows, maybe you'll prove that you're not just another Joe or that it doesn't matter even if you are.

Moving Out

This weekend I was at Aner's hous in Natanya as I said in my previos post, New Years came and went, the big event of the weekend although, was the dessission to move into an apartment within the next 2-3 weeks. Aner and Koby went looking around all last week for our dream house and came back with A+ results. A flat, 1 story house, 3 bedrooms, big kitchen, big living room, 2 bathrooms, with a respectable yard, concidering it's in the middle of the city, for only $500 a month! Between the four of us it'll only cost $125 per person!
The house isn't in the best condition but it fixable, 1 months work and we'll turn the place into a palace. A bit of paint, fix something here something there and walla, a perfect little house!
I'm going to Aner's next week, in search for a job, which should be an easy task in Natanya, the city is flowing with untaken jobs; hopefully I'll be working by the time we get into the apartment.

Oh shit... News Flash!
Dam our luck!
Koby just messaged me on MSN telling me that the owner of the house we plann on renting, has found someone willing to pay more per month than us and is in a hurry to get them to sign the contract! That means that if all goes well or actualy bad, then in a couple days it'll be to late for us to rent that apartment, it'll be taken by some ritch kids...Dam Them!

Well wish us luck, cross fingers, we want that apartment!
Worst case we find a different apartment, either way 2-3 weeks I'm outa here!

"Blog This"...Say What!?

I was wondering what would happen if I hit the "Blog This" buttun and then this window popped up so I'm trying it out. My guess is that it'll post this in my blog but I can't be too sure so I mine as well try...

The Aftermath

Happy New Years!!!
*cough cough*
That's over with.
Another year is behind us all, defenatly better than the year before last but basicaly eventless.
Thursday as I said, I was picked up by my friend, Aner, who drove an hour an a half just to pick me up and an hour and a half back. We got there, caught up on the past months events, played a few games of cards and hung out in his room; it was an enjoyable day.
Next day I woke 11:30am, early concidering I went to bed at 5-6am, a few long hours at the house till people came home and woke up, finaly at 3:30pm, I set out to the store Aner works in.
I was just about there when a group of five or six 8 year olds made their way towards me holding overflowing plastic cups of lemmonade, the sight made me laugh, it had been years since I've last seen kids selling lemmonade. I readyed my walet as I approached, "Will you buy a cup of lemmonade for only 1 shekel? We only sell on Saturday!", I was thirsty after my long walk to Aners job so I was happy for the drink, I gave them 3 shekel and took only 1 cup. They were so overjoye by me not only buying from them but also paying tripple what they asked, that they danced a loud victory dance around me while praising me and assuring me that I had "made their day". I don't know why they felt it important to point out that they only sell on Saturday, it was friday anyway but I was happy to make their day.
I go to enter the mall where Aner works and Koby, a friend of ours that works with him, called me and asked me to buy him ciggarettes. I was already 1 minute from the store so I said why not. I got to the store and I see the same group of kids that sold me the lemmonade, running out of a small shop, after them loud voices saying "God dam those kids, always stealing from us!", great, their stealing at the age of 8, Probably high on crack and trying to fund their next hit, "Kids these days"...
I bought cigarettes and joined Aner for a spin before entering the disc store.
Now there's not much to tell about the next 10-11 hours, we counted CD's, how interesting can that be?
It wasn't that bad, I was with friends and we made the best out of it but we finnished long past midnight (2:30am) and there wasn't much anticipation for New Years cellabrations. In the end we went to a small pub in Yafo, The Guznik, it's small cozey and has a good feeling to it, I don't usualy enjoy myself at pubs, maybe it was the 3 beers but I had a good time. We left earlier than we would have liked but Aner was driving and we didn't want him to fall asleep on the wheel. We got home, did a thing or two and went to sleep (6-7am), not great but by no means bad.