Thursday, April 14, 2011

Shutting off

As many of you may know, I just finished my three year mandatory service in the idf.
I was never one to get along with my country's more right winged tended policies and the concept of war in general, I'm not saying that I disagree with my country or don't believe in what it's army's trying to do, but i'm also not trying to open a political debate here.
As I said, the army was always a problem to me. And me and my friends always said that for some people, in order to survive there you had to "shut yourself down", not dumb yourself, but simply disregard what you think is the proper way in which things should work. Now I'm not talking about real moral dilemmas like having a pregnant woman in labor at a checkpoint but not being able to let her through cause she does not have a proper "visa" or anything like that. I never encountered any of those dilemmas, thankfully, as I served, even though I was technically a fighter, in the back, mainly in the center of the country doing relatively nothing.
The problems I'm talking about are much more mundane, like being unable to take orders from your superior officer cause he's a dick, getting completely crushed by the fact that you just got a ticket from an MP(military police-they are responsible for the proper appearance and behavior of soldiers) for having your hair slightly longer than permitted(roughly half an inch) and knowing that you'd get court marshaled for it and probably end up staying over a month in some stingy base for no fucking reason.
And I'm not even getting into boot camp which were probably some of the worse 4 months in my life, where you couldn't even take a piss without asking for permission and you'd lose a weekend pass at home for leaving your gun in your tent for like 5 minutes. 
I'm not questioning the necessity of these things, or even the logic, I can get that, but it's still hard to live like this for 3 whole years, so if your not really cut out from the right stuff for this sort of thing- you "shut yourself off", cause it's the only way to survive.
And I don't have a lot of experience but I believe that most people working in a capitalist society getting yelled at by their bosses, getting preached to by their wives, husbands,boyfriends and girlfriends, feeling empty because they're not who they think they should be, these people feel the same. so they too "turn themselves off" and do what they're told without questioning it, morally, logically or spiritually.
And I wonder, what kind of effect does this have on a human? Does it Change you? Did it damage you irreparably? And is it possible to turn back to the person your were 3 years ago?
Please give me your honest opinion on this...

-Written on my iPhone
P.s.
This was written at 3am while not being struck with insomnia, so don't hold any typos or other grammatical errors against me =].

Sunday, April 10, 2011

Computer OCD

My GOD my computer is messy... Tons of stuff all over the place, i can't seem to get a proper system for cleaning up and tidying up my folders and files...
anyone got of protips for me?

Thursday, April 7, 2011

A Gamer's Guide To Smart Shopping

Well, I promised you something more interesting, i hope this is it.
I've just bought a new Xbox 360, and spent most of my savings on it. some of you may know, i don't live in the UK or US or any other country where a game costs 50$, I live in israel and it costs more like 90-100$ for new console games because of taxation of import.
I still like to buy original games and am generally against the piracy of games.
So how can i afford new games while keeping my low budget demands? EBAY!
Now i know most of you probably know this, so this won't come as a shock, but i wanted to show the others, who are afraid of trusting strangers from a strange land with money and hope they ship something that's not broken.
Well first off, on ebay, if you wait long enough and are clever enough, you can buy completely new&sealed games for a fraction of the original price, how much is a fraction you ask? Mass Effect 2 cost me 15$ including shipment, and if you feel you can buy used games in great quality(seriously, they seem like new games just without the wrapper) I got Assassin's creed II for 10$ including shipment.
Now you might notice that these games are not the newest games on the market. you'd be right, it's sometimes hard to get new games at proper prices, but compromises must be made.
So how to find these games at such a bargin you ask?
Go to the search, and type the game you're looking for, then in the results page sort by shipment P&P: Lowest First. Then enter your place of residence.
Now you have to be careful, cause a lot of sellers don't specify shipment to shithole places like where i live, but will give you a rate if you ask.
Then depending on how fast you need the game, you can either look for Buy It Now or Bidding.
Also remember: watching is your friend, it'll keep a list of the items you might like and watched.
Finally, after you find the game you want you need to order, here most people get scared of giving out credit card info and such. Well, that's what PayPal's for.
And if you get a faulty game or broken or whatever? Ebay Consumer Protection will let you file a complaint and if you don't settle this with the seller, ebay will refund fully.
Happened to me a couple of times and nothing was wrong!
So good luck getting your new Halo:Reach for only 25$ incl. shipment!

Wednesday, April 6, 2011

So this is my first post

Ok, So now that i've gotten my head around the whole basic "blogger" thing, this should be a lot smoother and the blog easier to read.
It's getting pretty late, but i'll be posting tomorrow some cool thing that happened to me today