Somewhat belated, but ...

The totally coolest Shana Tova Greeting I've seen yet, and a pretty fun tribute to Tel Aviv as well, though I find the Exodus Theme Music just a tad too cheesy.

Shana Tova!!

Electronic Device Identity Crisis

My supposedly advanced Microsoft wireless (bluetooth) keyboard and mouse both gave up the ghost last night in mid-sentence, suddenly deciding instead that they were my cellphone, and trying, against all odds, to download the contents of my phone's address book to my computer.

And there was no convincing them that they weren't.

To add insult to injury, my keyboard and mouse both firmly resisted any attempts to reinstall them, including the old "turn the computer off and turn it back on again" method. I even tried leaving the house and walking the dog. That didn't help the computer, though the dog was somewhat relieved.

Fortunately, I happened to have another (older) keyboard and mouse available - of the wireful variety - which saved me from a painful computerectomy and ensured that I would be able to continue to work.

But now I am in the market for a new keyboard / mouse.

My preferences are for something wireless, however, I note that my experience with these, apart from battery guzzling, is that they are not terribly reliable. Leaving aside the tendency of the bluetooth key thingy to mistake the various devices that are connected to it for each other, it used to take my wireless mouse a good 30 seconds to 'wake up' if I let it go untouched for more than a minute. The keyboard was the same. The reaction times were very frustratingly slow.

So I am happy for the opportunity to change, but the question is - change to what?

If anyone has a recommendation for a good wireless keyboard + mouse combo that will actually respond when I touch them and that won't suddenly decide that they are a telephone, I'd be very grateful.

And if anyone thinks that the wired versions are preferable, then please point me to a mouse with a VERY long cord. These mouse cords are not made for people who click with their right hand, but have their computer by their left leg (which was pretty much the reason I opted for the wireless version in the first place) ...

Paris

Earlier this year, I traveled to Paris for a week-long drawing course during which we drew models and visited museums, among other things. It was incredibly fulfilling and this is my own little homage to this visit - and my second foray into oils.

Enjoy!

20 years

It is 20 years since I left highschool ... how scary.

My class had a reunion, in my absence of course, on August 16th, and although I thought nothing of it at the time, since I was on the invitation mailing list, I have been flooded this weekend by emails from those who attended, including one email with photographs of the actual event.

Naturally, despite the fact that I probably would not have gone to the thing even if I had been in the same country that it was being held in at the time, my curiosity got the better of me, and I went to look at the pics of the event.

My first reaction was - who the hell are these people? It took me a long time to recognize most of them, although one or two still look the same. Fortunately, they were wearing name tags, otherwise I would have been totally lost.

One of my former classmates has set up a facebook group for the Class of 88, and I debated long and hard before joining, but finally I realised that there were actually people in the group who I'd missed being in touch with.

There were around 1200 people at my highschool, divided into six years, each year having around 7 classes, and although in the first year we pretty much stuck to our classes, once we started taking elective courses and getting involved in other activities, we mingled more and I guess I would have been social with more than half of the 200 in my year.

But after highschool, I lost contact with most of them, since much of what we had in common had simply been six years of schooling in a shared environment. The school was not a Jewish school, and I found myself gravitating to a more Jewish social circle at university. Later on, I moved to Israel which of course effectively severed any ties that were not strong enough to withstand the distance. Now, however, I'm feeling awash with nostalgia and I've found myself searching for former classmates with reckless abandon. I'm not even sure why, but something in me wants to know, I guess, that they're doing ok. I know of one former classmate who passed away, and I guess I just want to check that the rest of them are still alive.

I'm not even sure why I'm blogging about this, given the absolute paucity of entries on this blog this year. Perhaps this is just my way of slipping back into the swing of the whole bloggitude of it all.

Wow, has it been a long time, or what?

Hello faithful reader!

Yes, I know, it's been ages and it's all my fault, but I needed a break from typing - a rather silly excuse given that my livelihood is earned entirely from typing, but I present it as my excuse nonetheless for you to do with as you will.

Actually, the primary reason for my not posting was that I felt I had nothing to post about, but when I look back at the past few months, I see that they were actually filled with the stuff posts are made of, and yet I deprived you, dear reader, of any insight into them. Not fair, I know. Not fair at all.

So the posts will come, most likely in stops and starts, because I really am incredibly busy with work and other stuff (mostly work actually), but they will come. I promise. Well, I hope, anyway.

Thanks for bearing with me. For some reason, even though it's been fully six months since I last posted (I think), I still have visitors to my blog, which is gratifying. Thank you, oh ye of eternal hope - I will try to make your visits more worthwhile in the future :)

In the meantime, bear with me. It might take a little time to crank this thing up again.

Ciao for now!

NC

The Ferryman

You will forgive me, I hope, for not writing lengthy posts at this stage.

Here is my first artistic offering for 2008:

Shells

Ok, it's been ages since I last posted. I know that I didn't write a Channukah post, despite the fact that I probably should have. And I know I've been very lax about posting in general all year - it's been a busy year, and last month I was away, so that's my excuse, and I'm sticking to it :)

This is possibly my last art post. The reason is, I want to put my art onto a proper dedicated website. So I'm looking for website constructors or other people who might be able to point me in the right direction in that regard. I am hopelessly ignorant of how to go about this, so any advice would be most welcome.

In the meantime, I give you - shells:




As usual, comments are most welcome :)

NC