Normally, I delete chain letters as soon as they land in my inbox. I find them offensive to my religeous beliefs. But this one is different.

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It's fun. Read, or don't. Play along, or don't. I'd love to hear from folks.

-Jen

here's what you're supposed to do...and try not to be LAME and spoil the
fun! Just give in. Copy (not forward) this entire e-mail and paste into a
new e-mail that you can send. Change all of the answers so that they apply
to you. Then, send this to a whole bunch of people you know *INCLUDING* the
person who sent it to you. The theory is that you will learn a lot of little
known facts about your friends. It is fun and easy!!!!




1. First Name: Yishay
2. Were you named after anyone? No. Its a biblical name (aka Jessie, father of king David), but I don't think that counts.
3. Do you wish on stars? No.
4. Which finger is your favourite? middle.
5. When did you last cry? Today. Not a major downpour, but still..
6. Do you like your handwriting? Yes
7. What is your favourite lunch meat? cold beef roast
8. Any bad habits? Smoking, drinking, staying up latter then I should, picking between the toes of my feet when no one is watching (yuck!)
9. What's in your CD player right now? Nothing. too late, everyone sleeping.
10. Do you believe in soul mates? Yes. I have at least 3.
11. Are you a daredevil? Yes, but a scared-shitless kind of daredevil.
12. Have you ever told a secret you swore not to tell? Really! What kind of person do you think I am? Oh, did you hear about...
13. Do looks matter? Would it be worth the bother of getting around this world if not?
14. Have you ever misused a word and it sounded absolutely stupid? Today, or just this week?
15. Do you think there is a pot of gold at the end of the rainbow? No, but I remember seeing a golden rainbow after smoking some good pot.
16. Do fish have feelings? Probably not, and if so - only before you eat them.
17. Are you trendy? I'm a whole fringin' sub-culture.
18. How do you release anger? You don't want to know. (Seriously, its not that bad. I usually talk my head off for 5 minutes and forget about it)
19. Where are your second homes? I'm still looking for my first.
20. Do you trust others easily? Yes.
21. What was your favourite toy as a child? Erector. Do they still make that?
22. What class in school do you think is totally useless? The teaching class.
23. Do you have a journal? No.
24. Do you use sarcasm a lot? Only when it's necessary.
25. Have you ever been in a mosh pit? God. I need a dictionary for that one. Hang on. Ur, yup. About 20 years ago. Does that make me old?
26. What do you look for in a boy/girl? A person.
27. What are your nicknames? Yish.
28. Would you ever bungee jump? No.
29. Do you untie your shoes when you take them off? I wear boots. But on the rare occasions that I wear trainers, yes.
30. Do you think that you are strong? Yes.
31. What's your favourite ice cream flavour? Perline.
32. What's your favourite colour? No such thing.
33. What is your least favourite food? Standard English / American bread.
34. How many wisdom teeth do you have? 2 (I think)
35. Are you in love with anyone? 3 people.
36. How many people have a crush on you right now? The same 3, I hope.
37. Who do you miss most right now? My sister.
38. Do you want everyone you send this to, to send it back? Of course!
39. What are you wearing? Black trousers. Dark blue T.
40. What are you listening to right now? The tick of the kitchen clock.
41. What are the last 4 digits of your home phone number? 2441
42. What was the last thing you ate? One-sided chocolate coated hob-nobs. 2 of them.
43. If you were a crayon, what colour would you be? Either black or white. Not sure.
44. How is the weather right now? London.
45. Who is the last person you talked to on the phone? My sister.
46. First thing you notice about the opposite sex? Eyes.
48. How are you today? Better now. Was too tired earlier, and didn't like it. Looks like tomorrow will be just as bad.
49. Favourite Drink? Context dependant.
50. Favourite alcoholic drink? Irish single malt.
51. Favourite sports? Cycling.
52. Hair colour? Blackish brown.
53. Eye colour? Green - grey.
54. Do you wear contacts? No
55. Siblings and their ages: Nilly, 32. Gidi, 27.
56. What is your favourite month? November.
57. Favourite food? Fresh baked bread and olive oil
58. Last movies you watched? Cold mountain, Love actually, Kill Bill.
59. Favourite day of the year? April 7th.
60. Are you too shy to ask someone out? No, but I have no intentions.
61. Scary movies or happy endings? Any, as long as they're not dumb.
62. Summer or winter? Winter.
63. Hugs or kisses? All that and more.
64. Relationships or one-night stands? Relationships, preferably life long.
65. Do you want your friends to write back? sure
66. Who is most likely to respond? Pim.
67. Who is least likely to respond? Gidi (just to spite him).
69. What books are you reading? Ana Isabel's thesis, "Apprenticeship in thinking" / Rogoff, and the fatal eggs.
70. Favourite Song? "Ve'Aich Shelo" Ariel Zilber. Its not the real name, but I forgot it.
71. Favourite board game? Go, but I don't remember the rules.
72. What did you watch on TV last night? Last 10 minutes of the evening news, 5 out of which were commercials.
73. Favourite smells? Bread baking. Wet soil. And a few that are too intimate to mention here.
74. What is the first thing you think of when you wake up in the morning? "oh no, not again" (not, but I like the quote anyway).

Spent a good part of this Friday evening trying to make sense of our bank accounts. Then, for recreation, I had a look at my mail. I found one msg from Michael, joyfully notifying me that

A publicity-shy Russian researcher who labours in near seclusion may have solved one of the oldest and most obscure problems in mathematics, the Poincare Conjecture.
[...]
Answering the question may help scientists better understand the shape of the universe. Beyond that, it may have no application whatsoever to everyday life.

Blimey.

So, must look that one up, right? Well. Here it is, strait from wikipedia:

Every simply connected compact 3-manifold without boundary is homeomorphic to a 3-sphere.

believe me, my bank accounts are harder.

Oops. I had a bug in my blog template. The archives were MIA. Any no one complained. I wonder...

The mailing list of the Keshet democratic school hosted a heated thread about how democratic the school should be. Um. Interesting, don't get a lot of discussion on how tyrannical the system should be in tyrannical systems. Never mind.

Every time I find myself witnessing such an argument, I remember my man Winston

Many forms of Government have been tried, and will be tried in this world of sin and woe. No one pretends that democracy is perfect or all-wise. Indeed, it has been said that democracy is the worst form of government except all those other forms that have been tried from time to time."

Winston Churchill, November 11, 1947

I think that is true for education as much as it is true for governance. I actually think that if you reject it in education, you have a hard job justifying it elsewhere.

As my (two) faithful readers have surely, noticed, I've been fooling around with blogccessories. I figured, if I'm blogging, might as well do it properly.

A couple of night ago we went to see Cold Mountain at the Screen on the Hill* in Belsize park. Truly moving, extremely well done. Although, when I told Sophie it has beautiful scenes, and beautifully characters, she said there's no way you'll see someone attractive in the Appalachians. I wouldn't know.

Anyway, it really is well done, but I got pretty depressed on the way back. I wonder. This whole war thing is so pointless, useless, wrong. The movie does get this message across. Is it because I come from a place where the issue is not, er, theoretic, that I took it so hard?

We walked back, over the hill (Primrose, that is). I thought how totally shitty it is that in so many places in the world people are still getting killed or maimed for nothing one way or another. Then I thought, hey, one of those places is mine. Looking over the London skyline, I wondered why I can't call this place mine.

I guess because it isn't. Never will be. Don't really want it to be. I guess that means I'm fucked.


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*: There web site is so crapy, I refuse to link to it.

Duh. Again.

About a year ago I was chatting with Mark about the possibilities of photo-messaging phones, and I had this idea, about posting to a blog directly from your mobile.

and here it is.

Only, of course, it's someone else's.

So, since I never bother to do anything with my insights anyway, here's my plan: any killer idea I have, I'll post here. If you read it, do it, and get rich - send me some chocolates (or a porch, or something..)

Jen and I finally got IM-ing, which is a bit embarrassing for two geeks like us (embarrassing that it took us so long). And in 5 minutes I learnt quite a bit about American politics. Apparently, just as depressing as ours. But what's more important, is that Jen has a Blog, and so does John, and they have (no surprise here) the most wonderful wedding album (I wouldn't have linked to it had there not been a link on Jen's blog).

Have you singed the petition?

Animal stories

In Tanzania, they're using rats to sniff out mines. Apparently, the rats have a much better attitude then dogs, and are also more intelligent. Well, better then the story about the The CIA-s Kitty Cat spies. Apparently, our leaders of the world spent 2M$ over several years implanting bugs in a cat's body. They used the tail for aerial.

The 2M$ agent kitty was run over by a taxi on its way to its first mission.

Kinda reminds you of the story about the American spy in Siberia...

Are they for real?

Our group is made up of many people, Jordanians, Palestinians, Indians, Americans, Russians and Israelis. Some of us are Jewish, some Christians, some Hindus and other of us are Muslim.

Believe it or not, we all love and respect each other.

We all work and play together. Our families on many occasions eat at the same dinner table. We trust each other and are very close friends with each other. As a group, the most important thing in our life is our children, our families and love ones and of course our friends.

Salon.com calls it The enigma of Earth Station 5.

Even The Economist mentions them.

More than 8000 people have signed a petition calling for the release of the convicted refusniks.. Sorry, Hebrew only, but I just had to have a link to the left bank.

Took the kids brass rubbing at St. Martins in the field. So English. Yet, I must admit, in the end I found myself fervourosly exposing the hidden charm and chaste of lady something, armed with a hard piece of gold colored wax.

After we accomplished our artistic missions, we had lunch at the Crypt Cafe. One of my favorites in London. Quite a bizarre place. The food looks very chick, and is probably quite tasty. We settled for our home-made sandwiches, and a cup of hot chocolate / cappuccino.

About vantage points. I tried to resist snapping back, but what can I do? Its my nature...

You know, sometimes, if you have your nose stuck against a wall (excuse the pitifully pun), you can't really see much beyond it.

So Naive, so simple, so beautiful.