Purim

Oops, I nearly forgot to blog today. I have to say it seemed a very 80% sort of Purim this year. What with the rain and all (everyone says it always rains on Purim, but it has not rained for five years before this) there were very few dressed up kids on the streets of Raanana yesterday, and I saw none today. I hear Tel Aviv was quite a blast, but here it was rather sad. The only thing of excitement that happened today is that one of my teeth seemed to have cracked and bits of tooth are falling out. This has never happened to me before. So it's off to Cecil the dentist, with me.

Tel Michal

I woke at 5 as usual this morning. I heard the sound of the rain and rolled over and went back to sleep. By the time 9am came around there was a break in the clouds and so the boy and I decided to go somewhere close by. It is difficult to find anything closer than Tel Michal (Makmish). It's a small tel overlooking the Herzliya Marina (and Arena Mall). It is maybe 5 minutes walk from squint central.

Tel Michal was probably a maritime fort or small harbor and was occupied intermittently from the Middle Bronze Age II (around 2000 BCE), and reached it peak during the Persian Period (586-332BCE). The ancient city was spread over five small hills and sherds of pottery from all the periods of occupation can be found on the sand (Bronze Age, Iron Age, Persian, Hellenic, Roman and Byzantine periods). Excavations took place over four summers (77-80) and there is a nice report for those interested.
It is pretty incredible, I have been past this tel thousands of times. I used to run past this wall on the Karkur cliffs overlooking the beach back in the old days, yet I never knew this tel existed. Until today that is. This is the view approaching the tel from the north side.
This is the corner of the wall of what I believe was a Roman fort that eventually was abandoned as the big fort and harbor at Appolonia took its place (Appolonia is about 3Km north).
This is the view of the marina and the mall's parking lot from the top of the tel.
There are definitely remains of walls here.
This is some sort of bath or something. The site was still wet from the heavy rains. But besides the strong wind the weather was fine for us. (It started raining again a few hours after we left).
The view of Tel Aviv to the south from the top of the tel.
The boy examining the millions of ants out sunning themselves after the rain.
It is springtime in Israel. The side of the tel was covered in wild flowers.
This is the highest part of the tel with the Oceanus in the background.

That was very cool. I was looking at this map this morning to see if there was anything interesting to see close by when I found this tel. Its a great resource and although the map is a little out of date, the pointers to the various interesting places are very relevant. That was a nice way to spend an hour.

Size Matters

First they gave us Masbirim, where the geniuses in charge of Israel's international image decided to use everyday Israelis to promote the country. Now "The Canadian Council for Israel" put together the following clip to promote Canadian students to come visit. I have no issue with the using sex to entice visitors, but this is just a little lame. Just show them a perfect fallafel bursting with fresh salad and tehina, or a delicious plate of humus and a fluffy pita, with some pickles and harif. Now that is really sexy.

The Dog Ate My Post

Last night I got home from work and it was raining. Hard. I was looking forward to climbing into my bed early with a nice book. I had decided to give myself a break from reading about surveys and fieldwalking and pottery sherd distribution on colluvial slopes. So I picked up the "Lord of the Rings", which I reread every few years. I was still marveling at Tolkien's masterful use of language, beginning in the introduction, when the lights went out. This is nothing new. We have a lot of power failures in winter, especially when it rains. The kids checked the neighborhood lights and it became clear this was a problem localized to our house.

The boy went downstairs and started flipping breakers. Nothing seemed to work. On further inspection it became clear that there was a serious problem with the GFCI (ground fault circuit interrupter - the blue breaker that always seems to be the first to go). There was no way to get the circuits in the house to all turn on. The best we could do was turning on the lights in the kids rooms.

Last night 9pm was also the first program in the TV series that we are rumored to be appearing in. We knew we would not be in the first show, but still received quite a number of phone calls to synchronize the family around taping or watching the show. Clearly we could do none of this, as the TV was not getting any juice. Along with the rest of the house. Between calls we scrambled madly for candles and flashlights. It was all rather a lot of fun. Blackwifeo slept through all this.

I arose at 3am to the annoying beeping of the alarm telling us that its battery backup was failing. I tried all the circuits again and still no luck. I managed to recharge the battery enough to have it stop beeping and went back to sleep. The angry alarm awoke us all again at 6am. It seems there is no way to turn the dammed thing off (a safety feature I guess). We got the kids off to school with a minimum of threatening and scrambled eggs. Bwo called the electrician at 7am. She woke him. All this time I tried every combination of breakers and could never get more than three circuits to work and never three useful ones at that.

Arie the electrician arrived just after 8. He took one look at the circuit board, flipped all the breakers - and we heard the beeping and whirring of appliances turning on all over the house. Just like that. I then identified how the squints at work must feel when they bring me some miserable, dead piece of hardware only to have it work in my office. Arie went around the house and checked the outside sockets. He claims that there must be a short to ground somewhere - this was causing all the circuits to trip. This does not really make sense to me, but then I'm not an electrician. He sealed all these sockets with silicone sealer took his money and went off.

And that's my excuse for why I did not post yesterday, and I'm sticking to it.

Up

When it has been a tough day all around and you get home tired and weary. When your shoulders hurt from holding your head up all day. My advice is to listen to Peter Gabriel's Up, the whole thing from beginning to end. I don't know why, but this particular album is working for me at the moment. Excellence in any form.

Placebo/Bowie

Jo here posting Tunes for Tuesday.
Petero has had an exceptionally exhausting day, what with waking up at 5am, slaving away all day at the salt mines and attending a squints wedding on the other side of the country. He then rushed back to pick me up just in time for my 10pm CT scan appointment in Tel Aviv. Just got home. Whew.

So as a favor, I am posting for him. Poor baby. I've decided on Placebo featuring David Bowie. This live video is crap, but the song is awesome.
So here it is - Without You I'm Nothing.



PS: This song was background for a super hot scene in the U.S series of Queer As Folk (episode 219 if anyone is interested- Brian and Jason doing it in the shower.) Tick Tock.

Das Capital

There is so much to rant and rave about today, I am not sure where to start. I could go off about the settler fools who decided to risk soldier's lives by breaking through a barrier in order to pray in a synagogue in Jerico. Or that our far-sighted PM decided to add Rachel's Tomb and the Tomb of the Patriarchs in Hebron (serious West Bank) to the 'heritage list' - I'm not sure what inclusion on that list means, but I have a feeling it will not end well. Then there's the matter of the family of five who got wiped out on the Arava road today. Then there is the ongoing mess with that assignation in Dubai. Oh, and it rained mud early this morning, messing my newly cleaned car. All this and more.

But, in fact the thing that got me the most worked up today was the incredible need of Hebrew Speakers To Capitalize Every second Word In Email. Now I know there are no capital letters in Hebrew, and so this may come as a shock to the natives, but there are some rules of capitalization in English. We use them to start sentences and proper nouns. There are a few other places that they are acceptable - But Using Them For Every Word In A Sentence Is Just Plain Wrong.

Scarves

So, I'm supposed to be the obsessive one in the family. Last week (It feels like it was last week) blackwifeo declared "I think I will crochet some scarves". These are some of them (yesterday's batch I think). She has, of course, given most of them away, but she is producing a scarf every 20 minutes or so. She does not seem to be able to stop. We don't even have a proper winter.

Tel Zayit (and Tel Burna)

This morning I set out alone. My family wanted to sleep in, so I was all on my lonesome. I decided to go check out two tels near Beit Guvrin (around Beit Nir and Gal On). Neither of these are huge and well known sites, but both are interesting in their own light. Both were on, or close to the border between Judea and Philistia during the old days.

I first visited Tell Burna. I came upon the webpage for this tel while looking for interesting places to check out. In June 09, the two guys responsible for the upcoming excavations held a survey. Their website shows some of the results nicely illustrated, using GIS (I assume). They found pottery spanning the Early Bronze Age (3200-2300 BCE) through the Middle and Late Bronze up to the Iron Age I (1200-1000 BCE). They found some Philistine pottery, so even though the city was on the Judean side of the border it seems they interacted with the Philistines.
The tel itself is surrounded by a formidable, if rusty barbed wire fence and seeing I was on my own, and with bso, the fence expert, I decided just to walk around the tel and look at it from all sides. I wish these guys a lot of luck with their dig this summer. It must be exciting to have your "own" site that you can track from idea, through survey to excavation.
My only company at 6:30am was this flock of birds that flitted around from spot to spot just in front of me. Israel is wonderfully green at the moment and the Beit Guvrin Valley is no exception.

After a nice walk around Tel Burna, I drove off to Tel Zayit which is just past Kibbutz Gal On and probably not more than three kilometers down the road. This tel has been excavated a number of times over the last few years and it appears they will be digging there once again this summer. The ancient city on the tel seems to have been a border town with almost continuous occupation from the Middle Bronze Age (around 1800 BCE) to the Ottoman period (1517-1917 CE). Neither of these cities has been officially named, although either one of them could be the biblical Libnah. It's hard to put a definite name to an ancient city unless some writing or other specific characteristic is found on site.

They dug here in 2009. You can see the remains of the excavations.
Most of the site was covered with black plastic, but it seems to have been blown away by the weather in this corner. You can see the stratigraphy in the walls of the pit.
The view from the top of the tel is excellent. If only Israel could stay this green all year long (then it would not be Israel I suppose).
If you look closely at this picture you can see the sandbag staircase the excavators use to climb the tel. It is still in perfectly good condition even though there has been some rain.

I made myself coffee and ate the wife's excellent homemade granola bars for breakfast, while sitting below Tel Zayit. By the time I left, around 8:30am, it was getting quite hot. I like visiting these smaller sites that have not been completely excavated (although nothing is really ever completely excavated), I will go back and visit these once after the digging season. Both sites have good web pages and that makes a lot of difference.

Friday Morning

Some days things go well. I got up this morning and it was Friday. The sun was not yet up when I had my double espresso and I swear there may be god in the foam. I did a little work on my essay, threatened the kids and ensured they got the bus on time and then took my usual Friday stroll down to the center. Most Fridays I take a walk into the center, check the post-box, buy some nuts (garinim and almonds) for the weekend and then walk back. This morning I was on a mission. Blackwifeo has been in the throws of spring cleaning and it was time to do my bit. I needed to find a replacement light for the fridge, a replacement UV bulb for Frank, the bug Zapper, and two replacement rechargeable batteries for our two cordless phones (so we can go ahead and lose them somewhere in the house again). Oh, and I needed to get some plans of a Fox bender copied for a fellow luthier in the US.

I am usually happy to be successful on just one of the four missions I set out with, but this morning I scored on all four. I found the replacement bulbs and the right rechargeable batteries. Then I moseyed on over the Chen Copies (opposite the Iriyah - city offices). I got there just as the copyman unlocked the door. I sat down on the chair he offered, we chatted about the unseasonable heat and how there is no rain and how this is our biggest problem here in the desert. I showed him my plans. "No problem" it will take a minute and would I like some coffee. He agreed I could take his picture, but could not understand why on earth I would want it. I don't know his name, I'm afraid, but he is one of a dying breed in these days of Office Depot and Quickcopy. I can't help liking Friday mornings in Raanana.

A Symposium

I'm a little tired today. Its been a hard week, as usual. I went to an Archaeological Symposium at the University of Tel Aviv this evening. I tell you one good thing about archaeology - there are quite a lot of old people involved. I felt quite young sitting out there in the audience.

Masbirim

O.K. So the government decided that Israel has a "declining international image", and so has utilized its secret weapon against the negative vibes - Israelis. I mean it. Check out this site: http://www.masbirim.gov.il I'm afraid it's in Hebrew, but basically it tells you how to be a good ambassador for Israel overseas. The fake news clips are cute in their lame way. "Together we will will change the picture" is the slogan. I suppose it's cheaper than having an independent inquiry into the Goldstone Report.

Radar Love

This is just too cool. This must still be one of the best driving songs of all time. This video is just so seventies - perfection. As the banner claims in the beginning, Golden Earring were in fact one of the only Dutch bands to ever really make it on the international scene. We loved dancing to this song when I was in high school. I just love this video, pity it ends so abruptly at 4:17.

Hey You!!

Yes you! You know I'm talking to you! Yes you, the Rabbi dude, dressed in your black jacket, white shirt furry hat. I mean you driving the white Mitsubishi with the "Mashiach Now" bumper sticker, standing next to me at the traffic light on Sderot Yerushalayim. Look, I can see you picking your nose. I'm sitting here watching you wipe your finger on the window. I see you examining your finds - maybe you're looking for gold. Please be reasonable and make sure you wash before you shake hands with any of your congregation. OK. Sometimes I just wonder.

Death Star Canteen

I saw this clip a while back and it is very excellent. I was reminded of it again yesterday. Eddie Izzard is one funny dude. It works so well in Lego.

Seeing as this makes the perfect Lego sketch, here's another version.

Tel Yavne-Yam

Tel Yavne-Yam is on the southern edge of Palmachim beach (near Rishon Lezion). Settlement here began during the Middle Bronze Age (mid second millennium BCE) and continued through the Iron Age (7th century BCE). Yavne-Yam eventually became a Hellenized city until its destruction by the Hashmoneans (second and first centuries BCE). Throughout history both the Hebrew name Yavneh and the Greek name Lamneia have been used to name the city. During the Roman period the port city became an important landing point for Christian pilgrims (it was even mentioned by the historian Pliny the Elder). As was usual along the southern Israeli coast in antiquity, cities had both coastal and inland settlements and the inland Yavneh became the important Jewish city and one of the main centers of ancient Judaism. During the early Muslim period (8-10 centruies CE), Yavne-Yam was known as the "Second Port" (Ashdod was first) and it served as one of the places where prisoners were exchanged between the Muslims and Byzantines.

We arrived at the beach at around 6:30am. We were alone except for some fishermen. From the Palmachim beach car park we took a little path down to the beach where we made our coffee.
Above is the view of Yavne-Yam from the path. It looks quite interesting with those sturdy walls. It's a bit of a let down when you actually get onto the tell. While the boy made the coffee I walked around the path and came upon these two who could not understand why we were not out fishing. I don't think this guy caught anything, but he certainly was ready for anything.
Right next to the spot the boy chose for our coffee, laying right there on the path were these. I think they are tesserae, Roman mosaic tiles. Of course, they could be some modern bathroom tiles that were dumped by some local - the area is really run down. Each one of these while stones are about a centimeter square. Some pieces are stuck together with some sort of mortar. I do think they're Roman.
Above is the view from the top of the tell looking at Tel Aviv in the distance. It's always nice to go to a site next to the sea.
The tell is in bad shape - it's obviously a place that the young of Rishon like to hang out. There are lots of beer and vodka bottles, remains of bonfires, and more than one bong, like the one above.
This is what the wall you see from the beach, looks like from on top. It must have been quite a city in its day. There is tons of pottery sherds laying around everywhere, from the beach car park to the tell was obviously part of the old city.
This is one of the few remaining walls that are standing. It's quite sad. The site is not in good shape at all. Still it was a great outing.
As we left the beach and drove by Palmachim army base, this little reminder kept us in touch with where we live. Just in case we could ever forget.

TIMEMUN

I have always been proud of the boy's involvement in the Model United Nations (MUN). This is one of the best after school activities I have come across. Basically High School Students represents various countries and issues in a "Model United Nations". Blacksono has represented his school in Qatar, and Paris. He has been involved in the school's MUN for many years and has moved up the ranks.

Each year our school hosts a bunch of other schools from around Israel and our neighbors, and puts on TIMEMUN (The Israel Middle East Model United Nations). Hundreds of representatives descend on the campus in Even Yehuda and represent various countries and issues (check out the issues, from "Illicit Trade in Small Arms and Light Weapons in Colombia" to "Creating an Middle East Stock Exchange"). This goes on for three days and is a huge logistic nightmare (Blackwifeo is running the food again this year), but it's where learning hits the road. How could you learn more about Nagorno Karabakh than by representing Azerbaijan and Armenia? I think it's a wonderful thing and hope more schools take it up in the future.

I am of course, most proud of blacksono who is President of the General Assembly. Now all we need to do is to find him a suit.

Nick Drake

Need one say more. Here is Nick Drake's "River Man". I have no idea where this particular video is from, it says it's an edit from a BBC documentary (but which?). I like the scenes of England. What an old, green land.

I would have preferred to embed, this video of the song, but Island Records have disabled embedding. Doesn't he seem like a very sad chap?

The Return of Azziza and the Curry

I don't usually post twice in one day, but today is special. Guess what! I got home tonight only to find that once again Azziza threw out the curry. How many curries are going to have to be sacrificed, I ask with tears in my eyes.

The NYTimes

There is a very interesting debate going on at the New York Times. Ethan Bronner is the Times' Jerusalem bureau chief. In my opinion he does an excellent job, from time to time annoying both sides of the conflict equally. A few weeks back I listened to his presentation at a Duke University conference on "Archaeology, Politics and the Media" (you can hear the audio by clicking on his talk at this link). Anyway, it appears that his son, 20 years old, decided to enlist in the IDF for 1.5 years. This has, of course, generated all sorts of repercussions.

On Saturday, Clark Hoyt, the Public Editor of the Post, called for Bronner to be reassigned. He claims that no matter how good and impartial a reporter Bronner is in reality, it's the appearance of bias that is the problem here. Bill Keller, the Executive Editor (the big boss), wrote a response on why he will not reassign Bronner. I am interested in watching where this story goes. Of course, the comments in the various articles on the issue are the most fun to read. I hope the don't move him, it will be interesting to see if the NYTimes can stand the pressure.

Germ Free World

I am very distressed by something I have noticed that's on the increase recently. More and more people are becoming neurotically germaphobic. Especially here in Israel. I'm starting to believe that someone like me, who is unafraid to open a bathroom door without protecting my hands with a tissue, is becoming a shrinking minority. Not to mention that I will even eat an apple after washing it with plain water (no soap or special pesticide removing liquid required) or wear new clothes without first washing them. I have even been know to drink out of the same bottle as another person. The horror! What is it with all these people. People who walk around with anti-bacterial gel in the pockets (or purses) so they can disinfect their hands each hour. I even know someone who doesn't like eating in restaurants because there could be germs on the knives and forks (no kidding) and who knows, maybe the cook has a cold!

I'm happy to say none of these freaks would last five minutes in our house. We are quite normal here. Except that blackson and blackdaughter don't like touching dirty dishes, but that has more to do with laziness than germs (judging by their rooms).

Emmaus Nicopolis

I have to apologize in advance for all the pictures and words. Blackwifeo hates it when I post too much and go off - it's boring, she always says. Well, it's my blog and I can do what I want. I had a really crappy week, this last week. Some weeks I get to the weekend and I feel I can't go on like this. Something is going to break. There are just too many balls in the air and I'm tired of catching them and stressed lest any fall to the ground and break. So today's trip was special for me. It recharged my batteries and defragmented my disk. I so needed it.

I forced myself and the boy out of bed before 6am. It was dark and cold. I warned him to dress warmly and in fact it was just 2 degrees C when we got to Latrun, and the car actually had the "ice on road" warning light flashing, something I have never seen before.

I planned a visit to Emmaus Nicopolis. It's an old town, first mentioned in connection with Judas the Maccabee's wars against the Greeks (2nd Century BCE). The Hashmonean city was destroyed by the Romans in 4 BCE. In the first half of the 2nd Century CE, Romans and Samaritans settled in Emmaus, which eventually gained 'polis" status and was called Nicopolis throughout the Roman and Byzantine period. It was conquered again by the Muslims in the 7th century and then again by the Crusaders who restored the Byzantine church.

Emmaus Nicopolis is particularly special as it's mentioned in the Gospel of Luke (Luke 24,13-25) as the village where Jesus appeared to his disciples after his crucifixion and resurrection. It's now run by the "Community of the Beatitudes", whose nuns and monks were asleep when we arrived at the gate at 7am. So we had some time to kill till it opened at 8:30.

It just so happens that Emmaus adjoins Ayalon Park (or Park Canada - it seems to have two names). So we went off into the woods to make our coffee.
It was cold. But we braved the elements and the coffee was hot and delicious.
The park has lots of trees. They are still young trees but it's beautifully green and lush.
I knew from my "research" that there was a Roman Bathhouse nearby and so we trampled through the mud and puddles (it has been raining of late) till we found it. It's great. See the channels that brought water into the pools.
We crept inside. There clearly has been archaeological work going on. You can see the hypocaust system the Roman's used to heat the air that passed underneath the warmed floor.
It's a great building. This I think is the room with the heated pool or caldarium, through the doorway is what I think is the tepidarium.
This is the roof. It was domed and there is that gap at the top where the light gets in now.
See these are the domes on the roof.
Adjacent to the bathhouse (in fact touching the outer wall) is a Muslim cemetery.
We did a little bush bashing and explored the destroyed Arab village of Amwas, which was captured from the Jordanians by Israeli forces in the Six Day War in 67. It seems that way back in 1878 one Blessed Mariam of Jesus Crucified, a nun from the Carmelite monastery in Bethlehem, had a revelation in which Jesus told her that Amwas was Emmaus of old. So the Carmelite monestery acquired the site from the locals and pilgrims have been visiting Emmaus ever since.
This is the tomb of Sheikh Ibn-Jebel. He was a Muslim general who died of the bubonic plague which broke out in 640 BCE, two years after the Muslims conquered the Holy Land. Emmaus was abandoned and fell into ruin due to the plague, until the Crusaders came along.
By now it was 8:30am and time to go visit Emmaus itself. On the way out of the park we stopped for bagele. The bagele dude, told the boy that the bagele on the table were just for "advertising" and the fresh ones are in the trunk of the brand spanking new Kia from Hertz. The bagele business is clearly better than I would have thought. His giant falafel (stuffed with onions) were excellent.
This is Emmaus (it costs 5NIS to enter, collected by a stern nun). These are the remains of the Byzantine Basilica (5-7 Century CE), rebuilt (on a smaller scale) by the Crusaders (12 Century CE). There are some excellent mosaics in the foreground.
This is the baptismal font (I think it's called). It used to be inside a smaller baptistery chapel.
I love the lines of this, the southern apse, unfortunately you cannot see the reliquary niche in this picture.
There are some 1st Century BCE Jewish graves in the hill off to the side of the Basilica.
This is the building you see from the Tel Aviv - Jerusalem highway (Highway 1) up on the left hand side as you pass Latrun Junction. The building was built in the 30's and now houses the chapel of the Community of the Beautitudes, who have lived there since 1993.
This is their chapel. I swear we have the same rug on our living room floor.

All in all, it was perfect. We came home and Ravid and Shiri popped in for brunch. Now it's time to hit the books. I feel much better.

Mosquito Love

Have you noticed that since I started up my studies again, I have become more predictable with my blogging. Any excuse to ignore the books. So how is this for 80%. For the last few weeks we have had a mosquito infestation here at #3. Every night we turn off the lights and a few seconds later I'm standing on the bed, squinting to get used to the light, squishing another bloody blood-sucker on the roof (I found that Collapse: How Societies Choose to Fail or Succeed by Jared Diamond makes a perfect mosquito flattening tool). Our ceiling looks like the windscreen of an 18 wheeler that's driven through one of those love-bug swarms in Houston. For two weeks now I have been looking for the poison to put in our "Sanomat" mosquito killing machine. I know, I know, the poison is probably killing us faster than the mosquitoes, but give me a break - I need to sleep - and that high pitched whine, it makes me crazy!!

We (bwo and I) have independently visited every SuperPharm and NewPharm in the Sharon region, and none of them have the deadly mosquito killing liquid refills in stock (good for 45 nights of untroubled sleep). Everywhere I went I got the same story. "It's winter, they only make them in summer and anyway there are no mosquitoes in winter". Well someone forgot to mention this to the mosquitoes. They think all the warm weather and water makes for a choice breeding climate. I can tell my the bumps all over my body. Finally yesterday, in the SuperPharm near squint central I uncovered two (dusty) refills, hidden last summer behind some tampons. I danced with glee over to the counter to pay the ridiculous non-discounted winter prices (25NIS each). The cashier looked at me when I handed over my card, "You don't need these surely", she said, "it's winter, there are no mosquitoes in winter".

Thank Shue

You cannot believe the stress and pressure of the last few days around here. Blackwifeo is a 'Dedicated Follower of Facebook' (a DFF), and the latest fad (well before the latest, latest, type your name into urbandictionary.com fad) is to change your profile picture to a celeb that you look like. She asked me what I have come to understand is the second most dangerous question of married life (after "how do I look in this?") - "What celebrity do I look like?". Of course, I have no idea. As far as I'm concerned she is the most beautiful woman alive and way surpasses all others in her radiance. Still, clueless male that I am, I had no idea. The matter went on for days, while all her friends were facebooking with pictures of Goldie Horn, Julia Louis-Dreyfus, Barbra Streisand etc, she was stuck with her own picture. What a problem.

Finally today, a friend from the US (thanks Lianne) figured it out. She looks like Elizabeth Shue! Especially the biceps. Whew the relief. But you know, bwo, you are much better looking than Elizabeth Shue and I think she should rather use your picture in her FB profile.

The Levellers

Today's video comes to you care of Brian. He is not one to post much. He sent me a pointer to this video. I liked it enough to buy an album of theirs. This video has energy. It looks like they enjoy their work. Ladies and Gentlemen - The Levellers.

So What Type Are You?

I am not usually moved by online questionnaires. But this one is way worth it (100%). What Type Are You is by Pentagram (one of the leading design houses, as explained to me by one of the hip designers working with us here at squint central. Do the questionnaire! I apologize in advance for their rude resizing of your window - They're designers after all. It appears my type is Pistilli Roman. Because "If you always demand that things be in order, then are incredibly moved when they are". So What Type Are You?