I have some things I have to do for work (read: army). It'll keep me very busy, away from home, and unable to post for weeks at a time. I might be able to resume normal programming in a month. Bye until then!

I have it, and I can tell you that it's pretty amazing. I'm totally in love. There is more info in this article from the NYTimes.

and I passed! BUT, lemme explain what a mess it was for me to get it. So I started driving in the states when I was 15, meaning I've been driving around 9 years. When I came to Israel, I was able to drive on my Chicago (ok, fine. Illinois) license for a year, but to drive more than that I had to convert it to an Israeli license. Here is the process of that: First, I had to go to this office that does nothing other than give people the first form they need when they wanna start driving (this office is in Haifa). Then I had to go to an optimistic (to get my eyes checked), and then a doctor (to get physical). Both of them wrote on the form I got from the first place that I had seen them, and I'm good to go. I then had to take that form to another office so it could be stamped (which was 2 buses/over an hour outside of Haifa). After they stamped it, I had to call a driving instructor. Even though I'm only converting a license, I am required to take a couple driving lessons (at a cost of 160 Shekels). After the two (rather pointless) lessons, I then had to have my driving instructor set up a test for me (you use the instructor's car for the test). Pass or fail, I had to pay another 300 Shekels for the 15 minute test. I passed, so that means I now have to pay another 120 Shekels to get the piece of paper that will be my license for two months (after which I will receive the real deal in the mail).
If that's not bad enough, while I was taking the test some crazy shit went down. I was coming up on the last stop light just before the test is over (literally 20 seconds from the finish) going 40 k/h (10 under the limit). When I was about 15 feet from the line in front of the crosswalk the light turned yellow. I thought to myself "well there is no way I can stop in time, so I'll just coast right through." Turns out my tester had other plans. He slammed on the brakes and we ended up screeching to a halt about 10 feet past the crosswalk. Inside I was thinking "WTF is he doing?!? This is the part where this MF-ing bastard is gonna screw me! You BASTARD, WWWWWWHHHHHHHHHHHYYYYYYYY?", but I just nicely looked over at him and said "we were going 40 and only 4 meters from the intersection, so I assumed the yellow meant I could just coast through." He replied "but after yellow comes red." Then I just asked if we should back out of the intersection (trying to make a point, but nicely) and he said that we were fine where we were. Anyhow, I still passed, but they don't tell you here until about 5 hours later (so it was an intense 5 hours).
Here is another fucked up thing about the whole issue. If you are a 17 year old Israeli who wants to get a license in Israel, you are required to get a driving teacher and take at least 28 lessons (at 80-120 Shekels, each). The thing is, guess who decides when you are ready to take the driving test? You guessed it: The guy who you are paying all that money to for the lessons. This means that if he wants you to take 40 lessons (which happens ALL THE TIME), you have to take 40 lessons. So he has an economical interest in not letting you take the test. It is made worse by the fact that you can ONLY practice with him. No permits to drive with parents (reinforcing the need for you to pay a lot of money). This is a small example of how this country works. At least another small hurdle is behind me, though.

I'm sure a lot of you have heard about this, but a Picasso painting called "Boy with the Pipe" was sold yesterday for $104,168,000 at Sotheby's. The piece is considered a masterpiece and was painted in 1905 during Picasso's "Blue Period." I don't really have much to say about this, it just struck me that someone would pay that much money for one painting. It's probably really bourgeois of me to say that I don't think I could spend that kind of money on a painting regardless of how much money I had. Anyhow, here is the painting:

So lately I've been watching this show on the National Geographic channel here that is telling me things that it seems better not knowing. The show is about commercial flights that crashed (or almost crashed). It's an hour long show. The first half hour is about what happened from the point of view of the passengers and the pilots and the second half hour is about what actually caused the problems with the flight and what could have been done to prevent it. The scary part is the fact that the answer to the questions "what caused this horrible event?" is always one of two things:

A. The airline wanted to save some money so they decided to ignore a clear problem that the plane is having because they didn't wanna spend a little extra money fixing the plane, or

B. The design of the plane was flawed because the company that made the plane wanted to make a little more cash so they cut some engineering corners to pad their bottom line a bit.

Ok, I must admit that sometimes it's not one of these things...but only when it's BOTH! So this show is on almost every night, and every night the airline tries to cover up their "cost-cutting measures" so they don't have to pay millions to the relatives of the two hundred people that were killed to save the airline a few bucks. I've seen about 15 episodes of this show and not once has the crash been unavoidable. Actually, in all but one of the 15 episodes so far, somewhere along the line a mechanic reported to his supervisor that there was a problem he needed to fix but was told to ignore it (or do a really shoddy/quick repair job) to get the plane back in the air quickly. Kinda freaks you out to know that the company you're trusting your life to is more interested in money than the lives of the 200 people on the plane.

is that sometimes you are permanently screwed. Take the case of Miss Britney Spears. Apparently, she is a big fan of the kabbalah because her friend Madge turned her onto it, so she decided to get ink-ed "hebrew-stizz." Problem is, she don't know hebrew and was unable to verify if what she had permanently written on the back of her neck was "deep and meaningful" or "gibberish." Turns out it's just gibberish. Where's an israeli when you need one? Anyhow, I found out about it from this story, but here is the photographic evidence:

there is something about it I find rather bothersome. The problem is that the bathroom is right next to the kitchen. And when I mean "right next to," I mean that the window in the bathroom opens right to the kitchen. This means that when "number two" is in play and someone is cooking in the kitchen I have to just hold it till they are done. I was cooking in the kitchen once and it got too much for one of my flatmates to handle so I heard some rather loud/disgusting noises in the middle of my food preparation. I was trapped in the kitchen because, if I left, the food would have burned. Generally, my apartment is amazing. Big rooms. Cheap rent. Amazing location. The bathroom thing gets a bit much sometimes though. I mean, it could be worse. Sayin'.