iod

Upgraded to Firefox 3.5rc1. Nightly Tester Tools has once again saved all my yet-to-be-updated extensions that work fucking well even though nobody has flipped a number somewhere (what's the deal with that? It's so annoying!).

Also, from Revital Solomon's blog:



geeze...

I actually emailed my supervisor today. Of my own volition. I'm quite proud of myself, really.

So, fellow Ontarians, I'm trying to make sense of this GST/PST harmonization thing. Why is everyone saying it's going to make stuff more expensive? Aren't we already paying 13% taxes on everything? Why should it matter whether it's divided into GST and PST or if it's all in one lump?

Stop demonizing Israel. Stop the one-sided portrayal of Israeli actions in Gaza. Get real.

During out visit back home I dropped by the local Tzomet Sfarim bookstore to see if there's anything that I might be interested in, despite the fact I had no time in the past 18 months to read anything not study-related except for a single Pratchett book. Anyway, as I was strolling by depressed by the complete lack of anything mildly interesting, I noticed a book by wassername Daliot, the Israeli Supernanny. Out of mere curiosity I flipped to the contents page to see what sort of topics she's covering. The very first one was about a child who sleeps in her parents' bed. That hit home. So I started reading the first chapter. It took a lot of flipping through endless pointless descriptions, some of them in boxes for not apparent reason, but eventually I got to the practical stuff. She suggested to a couple that came to her with the problem that during dinner, they explain to the child that tonight she is going to sleep in her own bed, and instructed them to quietly but stubbornly refuse to give in to her crying and return her to bed whenever she got out of it and into their room.
Now, our kid has his own bed, which is in our room for lack of space. He used to be in a crib, and for a while he even slept there regularly, but then we had some transition issues and we felt sorry for him, so we let him sleep with us. When we decided it was time to get him back to sleeping in his own bed, we found he could climb out of the crib - just well enough to throw himself out of it and fall 4 feet to the floor... So we sold the crib, and he was allowed once again to sleep in our bed. We then bought a toddler bed, and, like I said, placed it in our room, next to our bed, but he still refused to go to sleep in it - he fell asleep in our bed and I had to move him every night over to his own bed.
Tonight I figured I'd give that idea of Daliot's a shot. Come evening I told the kid that tonight he's going to sleep in his own bed. He seemed confused at first, and said "mommy daddy bed" a couple of times. I insisted, and even reminded him that it was grandma and grandpa that bought him his new bed (which is true). He considered this for a while, and then climbed into his bed, and asked for his pillow, which was on our bed, and his new Dora doll, and then he just put himself to sleep, no argument, no crying, no resentment.

Every once in a while he reminds me just what a great kid he is.

This past week I was frantically trying to finish reading Huntington's Political Order in Changing Societies (1968), on which I was supposed to give a 40 minute presentation today in my Core Developing course. The book is some 460-odd pages long, but we were spared a hundred of those. Still, that meant I had to do about 100 pages per day (including the added critiques) if I was to manage it on time. I'm not used to reading so much, and I DO have other things I need to attend to.
So I ran kinda late and only really finished writing the presentation last night.

Nonetheless, I got quite positive responses, and am incredibly relieved to have that behind me. Now I can actually enjoy my visit to Israel during Reading Week without constantly thinking about my assignments, like I did last year.

My LJ style-thingie broke sometime recently, and all the subject lines were blacked out, so I've changed it, for the first time since - oh, I don't know, 2001? Yeah, I'm that sort of guy.
This needs some getting used to. I don't deal well with change.

On a happier note: our child care subsidies finally got approved, so we not longer need to pay 1450 DOLLARS per month. That should make things considerably easier. Ah, welfare state, how I love you.

Look what I found on the way to university yesterday:



On the way back I stopped to look at the crime scene up close:

here.

Breaking News: We now own share our home with serve Petel.

House is in da house!

Going around campus on the start of the new year, I passed a group of first year undergrads, and felt a melancholy feeling flooding me. It took me a couple of seconds to realize why. Then it hit me. These kids, they're 12 years younger than me.

Oh dear.

Want to be a part of a new joint narration project? There are more details on this idea I'm starting to work on - that you can participate in! - in my Hebrew Blog.

I seriously don't know how, but Dr. Horrible actually depressed me.

I don't know how many, if any, non Israelis read this blog, but if there are, here's something you should watch:

I know I'm not supposed to complain about stuff like that, but my kid's "noon nap" (that started at 9am) has been 4 hours long, and counting... That's just crazy.

I'll give this much to those fellas as the BBC - they sure can keep a secret well.

Oh, well, like Tom Baker said - three years is more than enough. Nice knowing ya, Dave.

Tomorrow will be Carmel's first day in day care. I'm... speechless.

Evil, you hear me? That man is plain EVIL.

(SPOILER!)
(plus, that happy ending was the worst happy ending in the history of not at all happy happy endings. I want to kill myself).