I was at my aunt's, and a dumb distant relative of mine who was there kept talking about this psychic that her friend went to who felt the presence of the spirits of her parents in her room blah blah blah blah. I couldn't stand it and went home. They are still there talking about that crap, probably. Ugh.

She goes around with those huge jewels everywhere. She has a big golden disc ring on her finger, a half-golf-ball-sized diamond (fake?) ring, a wrist-band with pearls the size of small tomatoes, randomly huge earrings and more I don't remember right now. It's so incredibly pretentious. And ugly. And makes her seem shallow and dumb.

She is generally dumb. I don't even remember what else specifically she said, but I remember there was something that made me think "oh man, she is dumb".

My aunts and her are there right now, talking about aunty stuff. (They are all like 40-50, btw.) You know those conversations? It's one of those conversations where you sit on the side and listen in, in shock. On some sentences, half of the words in the sentence are names of people you don't know. On others, you'll hear them talking about really trivial things, and treating them seriously. Sometimes they'll all argue about something completely wrong just because nobody figured out it was wrong.

Here is a memorable example:

Annoying Distant Relative: Oooh, and did I tell you about my friend <name forgotten>? She is making a lot of money now. <Name of TV celebrity> went to her a couple of weeks ago.
One of aunts: Yeah, amazing... She only recently studied it, and already she's making 250 NIS [a little over $55 -ed] off every session!
Other aunt: Oh? What does she do?
ADR: Oh, she studied Numerology and she does <activity forgotten, something like card reading>
Me (from the other side of the room): Studied Numerology? Hmm... Did she get a degree?
Everybody: (laughing, completely missing the sarcasm)
ADR: No, but she makes more money than some people with a degree...
Me: Well, not all. (everybody ignores this and carries on) Well, you know what? You're all idiots. Screw you guys, I'm going home.

That was when I went home. I probably didn't say the last part out loud. Too bad.

Have you ever had a forced conversation with someone? It's the one where you have to talk, but there is nothing to talk about. For instance, when a person you sort-of know runs into you on the bus, and sits next to you, so you almost have to talk to them until one of you gets off the bus.

So, I met Hally (what kind of stupid name is Hally, anyway?) on the bus sometime around last week. I was on the bus first, and she got on at some station, saw me, said "Hey!" and sat next to me. We started chatting, and about 28 seconds later, it turned into a forced chat. (I was the one trying to make conversation, and she was the one that wasn't cooperating.) Some time later I got off.

The same thing happened this week. Same chick, same circumstances. Only it was more like:
Hally: Hi. You seem tired...
Me (I wasn't tired): Err, kinda, not really, eh, whatever. I guess. (Semi-sleep until end of bus ride)
Me: Well, bye.
Hally: Nice chatting with you.

I concluded that I must face a tough decision, as I am likely to meet her many times on the bus. I have two choices. I can either socialize, and maintain a healthy bus-relationship, or I can shut her down to get more bus time.

I'm leaning towards the latter at the moment.

I'm joining the army (IDF) this Sunday.
Not a combat unit.
More cannot be said here.

See ya!

I just cut my finger. In order to remove the plastic thingie covering the 5.25" bay in this particular new, empty case, I had to put my hand inside the drive area, and unclasp some clasp. Well, it suddenly snapped out, causing my hand to move back and my finger to get cut by a somewhat sharp metal edge.

I will live. But I was pissed off for about 13.8 seconds.

On second thought, don't wear gloves. It'd be uncomfortable. Maybe only put them on when removing annoying plastic covers.

My little sister has been experiencing annoying popups on IE (read "annoying" as "infinite popup loop", possibly due to some malware that got installed). So I decided to end it once and for all, and to install Firefox on her computer after using it myself for the past 2+ months. You know, as an experiment to see how computer illiterate people handle it (and to avoid fighting IE).

LS: What are you doing?
Yoni: Installing Firefox.
LS: What's that?
Yoni: A Web browser that isn't IE.
LS: Huh?? There's no such thing.
Yoni: *giggle*
LS: ...next you'll be telling me there are sites that don't start with "www".

As a happy ending, she managed to send her super important email through Hotmail (oh the irony) without being bombarded by popups. Woo!

I liked DSC02652 especially.

http://www.hpcalc.org/hp48/pc/pictures/hp48sx.jpg

This is a nice calculator.

I need a new calculator. My TI-80 died a long time ago, and it's a terrible calculator anyway (compared to alternatives). I've been stuck with a Casio fx-570W, which isn't that bad for a non-graphing calculator... But it doesn't have the power.

I heard the HP-49G+ is super awesome, maybe I'll buy it, if I can find it.

http://www.hpcalc.org/hp49/pc/pictures/hp49gplus.jpg

See: http://www.foxnews.com/story/0,2933,123843,00.html

Yesterday, I scratched my knee. Why is the human body so fragile? We need armored skin, or something. That would rule.

My last journal entry was a little over 14 months ago.

Since then, the number of Slashdot fans I have accumulated has grown to a grand total of four.

I suppose you lucky four will get a slashdot message now that I've written a journal entry.

What a great audience. Maybe I'll get a thing started here? Or maybe not, I'll decide later.