Hide the Children

And just because this post will make October the most "fruitful" month in this blog's history...

Those crazy t-shirt wearing Israelis are at it again.
Oy vey. Is Pepsi pushing for their own or just laughing their heads off?

Maybe She Was Trying to Land a Job at Hooterim

This just in:

An IDF soldier fled an interrogation room by exposing her breasts to a stunned officer. The soldier was interrogated at the Biranit army base on the northern border after she refused to undergo a drugs test. A short while after her questioning began the soldier was seen walking out of the interrogation room and heading toward the main gate.

An officer at the base told her she was under arrest and demanded that she return to the interrogation room, at which point the soldier took her shirt off and told the officer: "Let's see if you can arrest me."

The soldier took advantage of the officer's momentary lack of concentration and quickly left the base. She was caught a short while later.

During a hearing at the military court in Jaffa the prosecutor demanded that the soldier, who was discharged from the army due to psychological disorders, receive jail time for her actions, but the judges ordered her to pay a NIS 1,000 ($250) fine.

A momentary lack of concentration? Did he enter a catatonic state? And what message does this send about the preparedness of Israeli security? I could really use a microwave...any of my busty friends want to, ahem, "pick one up" for me?

Nivit, can you stop at Home Center? No need to bring your wallet.
Photo credit (Me, as I was drooling)

BREAKING NEWS: Mysteriously, about five minutes after her escape, the men's bathroom was found locked with no answer.

Intro to American Football

Before the new Israeli Football League kicks off this year, let's get a few things straight.

Israelis, here are our first lessons on American football:

1) You have seventeen chances to get three yards.
2) The object of the game is to hit the ball through the hoop before the other teams wins three sets.
3) And the average play looks pretty much like this one.

Yup, just your average touchdown.

Tuesday Israeli Hottie #1

Ah, what the heck? Inspired by this post, why not kick off the Tuesday Israeli Hottie series with this story?

Remember that Sizzlean commercial from the 80s? "Move over, bacon! There's something meatier!" (Sorry, Israelis, you had two channels.)

Well, there's someone new in town, my loyal readers, and you may be seeing more of her in the future. Goodbye, talentless biotch formerly known as Bar...hello, Moran Atias. (Ok, so she's not graced with the best name for success in America, but what can you do? It's acceptable here and right up there on the list of "Worst Names for an Israeli in America" with Osnat and Dudu. That's the equivalent of someone naming their daughter Shilshula and making aliyah.) According to this story, Moran is the one of the six finalists to be the next Bond girl and the last remaining Israeli. Hey, very exciting.

This poor woman can't even afford a new shirt. Give her the job, people!

From the writers who brought you Pussy Galore...Tseetseem Goldshtein! Through an internet leak, I've actually managed to liberate a script from a recent casting call with Moran and Daniel Craig...here it is:

Girl: "Oh, Meester Bond! You ahr so handsome...and so dan-gehr-ous!"
Bond: "Well, Tseetseem, you have to be in this job."
Girl: "Oh, Meester Bond! I want to lahv you!"
Bond: "Well, why don't we go back to your place and I can show you some more of my cool gadgets?"
Girl: "B'seder! I should tell you though that I leev at home and my brah-ther is home from deh army..."

Whatever happens with this role, Moran is already lined up to star in an upcoming Judd Apatow flick (the guy who brought us "Knocked Up", "Superbad", "The 40 Year-Old Virgin," and more. And you're not going to believe the plot.)

Judd Apatow, hottest guy in Hollywood these days.
No sarcastic caption needed.

As for that other Israeli model: it seems that she and Leo have gone their separate ways. (For a second there, I thought about linking to a certain Journey video.) Nice career move, woman.

4:04 PM "Yisrael sucks!"
4:05 PM Gets dumped on her ass
4:06 PM Frantically calls publicist, realizing that her life has peaked at 21

In other news, she still hasn't called yet. When she realizes that I control her career through Google, oh believe me...she'll call.

Thanks to Dave and Shara for the lead.

Come back next Tuesday for more Israeli hotties! You never know, ladies, it could be a guy.

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"This is the Sound that Israelis Make When Trying to Get a Thought Out..."

Games are fun, my loyal readers. Rare is the occasion in adult life that we get to play them but when we do, it's always a fun time. As childhood turned into college, Chutes and Ladders and Monopoly gave way to good fun like Scattergories and Pictionary. My friend Sarit used to have people over for Shabbat dinner at the University of Texas and the evening often ended with us our trying to outbluff each other, courtesy of Balderdash.

"You seriously don't know what 'usufruct' means? Everybody knows it's the liquid that accumulates at the bottom of the wax paper after you eat a falafel."

So when I recently found myself at a dinner where the host whipped out Taboo, I was more than happy to play.

For those of you who don't know, Taboo is a game where you have to get your teammates to guess a word which you describe without being able to use other related words. For example, I'd have to get you to guess the words "Bar Refaeli" without using "Leo", "model", or "spoiled brat with no brain." Good times for all.

Can you describe this Israeli ad without using the words "tacky", "risque", and
"Jesus, who authorized this???"

Now, you may not have realized that Taboo in Israel is slightly different from the game which you might have played in the Diaspora. For example, in our game, someone drew the word "Europe." What words would you think might be taboo? Gee...I don't know... culture? Queen? Empire? Uh uh…how about “Shoah?” Somebody’s holding a grudge!

Really??? THAT'S one of the critical words without which we shouldn't be able to describe a major continent???

"Ok, this is a continent in the northern hemisphere.”
"North America?"
"No! It has many countries which speak various languages."
"Asia?"
"NO! Arrgh...it includes England! France! Spain! Poland!"
"I have no idea."
(BUUUUUUUUUUZZZZ!!!!!!)

"Dammit! If only I could have said Shoah! "
(pause)

"Oooooooh, Europe!"

Welcome to Israel.

I also find that this game impairs your ability to speak normally for 10 minutes immediately after completion. After I play, I’m stuck saying things like, “I’m really tired now…I need to go to…?” Sleep? YES!

On an unrelated but still funny note, you should play this game with Israelis if you want to set a world record for the most “Ehhhs” in a sixty-second period. I'm fairly certain someone in our game managed at least 28 billion. Hilarous.

Ok, this is what you're going to do to tell me what you think of this post...

If I Move Back to America, This Will Be Why

Security? SECURITY??? When people say life in Israel is hard, this is what they're talking about.

My socks, after falling to their tragic death.
WHY DON'T THEY SHOW THIS ON CNN???

Fortunately, we have waitresses that look like this to make us forget about laundry stress.

My visiting friend Amir, smiling like it's class picture day.

I really need to begin my weekly Tuesday Israeli Hottie series already. Coming soon.

Weekend at Bernie's (if Bernie were a Nazi)

Earlier this week, I spent 3 days in Berlin, meeting my parents who were on vacation from the States. After the requisite "how was it?" question usually came the follow-up "Why'd you go there?" One, because that's where my folks decided to go along with a week in Prague and, two, because I thought "hey, why not confront my people's collective trauma head-on?"

"Germany: Because the Caymans Would be Far Too Relaxing and Mindless"

-Brought to you by the German Ministry of Tourism

I've now visited the European cities of Paris, Prague, and Berlin in the last three years and drew the following conclusion:

Pay attention to this because I'm going to get sarcastic again later
Look (a word that people say when they're about to present a position that may need defending), Berlin's a great city. As new as any place I've seen, a result of having to be rebuilt after a military ass-kicking 60 years ago (that is an actual combat term) plus the Wall coming down less than 20 years ago. Beautiful architecture and incredibly clean. The people were friendly. And the bathrooms...ohhhhhhhhh, the bathrooms! (Hey, Israel! THOSE are toilets worth paying 2 shekels for! Here's an idea...GET TOILET SEATS! I would have eaten a currywurst off the floor of the average German W.C., which is probably disturbing on multiple levels.)

As for..."that other thing": again, it's a great city. I felt conflicted and somewhat guilty for, aleph, enjoying it as much as I did, and bet, not being overwhelmed emotionally by Holocaust reminders. This wasn't a visit to a concentration camp and these people didn't do anything (although their grandparents probably did, (insert uncomfortable laugh)). And by the way, it took me approximately 1.03 seconds for my rarely-working filter to put the kibosh on this post's "Hit-ler?...I hardly..." title. Was that too long?

And now, some pics from my trip:

A train car turned into food stand.
For the love of G-d, can we please get a Jew on their management team?

This is a fancy department store in Berlin's shopping district. If you look around the room, you'll see a variety of nice things I can't afford. (In the foreground, an Aryan stands guard.)

I always loved this movie.

How do you say "Seacrest is a tool" in Deutsch?

How'd you like to have to pencil in all those bubbles on your 8th grade test forms? And why are all German words ßo lÜng?

Remants of the Berlin Wall.
I'm turning this one over to you, my loyal readers. Best caption wins a prize.

"Sie siiiiiiiiiiiiiiiind lecker!"

In conclusion, it was a good trip. In Berlin itself, there aren't as many historical reminders as you might expect and those that were there in no way detracted from the enjoyment of the city. Go visit. And bring a few euros for the bathrooms.

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Hello, (Nivit) Accidental (Bash) Google (Nivit) Visitors!

In the spirit of this post...and in honor of the testosterone-driven searchers who are ending up here on a daily basis...

NIVIT BASH NIVIT BASH NIVIT BASH!

And on top of that....
CHUMUS!
CHUMUS!
CHUMUS!

Get to work, Googlebots! Thank you for your patience.

More Great Duos in History

Has it really been a year since we covered some of the great duos in history? Let's take a look at a few more.

1) Steven Tyler and Joe Perry: Nicknamed the "Toxic Twins", these rock n’ roll powerhouses had enough hits to span TWO careers (the earlier of which I now prefer.) Some friends like to remind me that I went to an Aerosmith concert with my mother because she wouldn’t let me go alone. To them, I say…um, let’s move on to number 2.

2) Falafel and shawarma: this pair sustained me through many a trip to Israel. Still delicious even today. As I’ve mentioned before, I love how Americans portray falafel as a “healthy snack.” If you mean that in terms of how it’s deep-fried in oil and clogs arteries like there’s no tomorrow, yes, I suppose it’s right up there with tofu and oat bran.

How Americans manage to stay in shape.
(See, Israelis, I don't just make fun of you.)

3) Troy Aikman, Emmitt Smith, and Michael Irvin ("The Triplets"): Led the Dallas Cowboys to three Super Bowls. What, you want me to pick just two of them? You don’t choose when it comes to family.

4) Yasser Arafat and Sheik Yassin: Paying attention? Just checking.

5) Yiyeh B’seder and Hakol B’seder: The yin and the yang of “everything is messed up real bad.” We’ve devoted a lot of attention to the former, that ubiquitous phrase that Israelis say during times of trouble which, upon further investigation, actually has no healing power whatsoever.

My dog just died!
"Yiyeh b’seder!"
I just failed a test!
"Yiyeh b’seder!"
The doctor wants to amputate my genitals.
"Nu, be'emet! Stop woh-ree-eng!"

Only a few days ago did I meet this phrase’s partner-in-crime, its other half, its soulmate….without further ado, I present to you…

HAKOL B’SEDER!

Whereas “yiyeh b’seder” translates to “it will be ok”, this phrase lets us know that everything IS ok! Let’s try it out, shall we?

Gee, I don’t know…let’s just say a friend of mine named “Renji” was taking a sheirut (shared taxi) from Jerusalem back to Tel Aviv Saturday night listening to his iPod. (It may or may not have been Def Leppard but it's sort of irrelevant since this is of course just a story.) He’s relaxed, starting to doze off, when suddenly, the sheirut swerves out of the right lane and collides with the barrier on the side of the highway. What happened?!, one passenger asks. Another responds, he fell asleep! Yes, yes, Renji thinks he did fall asleep, as he did see him swerve a little just a few minutes earlier and thought nothing of it.

But wait! The driver says “hakol b’seder!” Whew, now they can put THAT behind them. Apparently there was a flying rock on the road and he reacted. One passenger calls him a liar and the whispering continues although I’m not sure why…didn’t they hear him? HAKOL B’SEDER, MY FRIENDS!!!!! He almost killed them all? NO PROOOOH-BLEM!!! Hakol b’seder right now and yiyeh b’seder tomorrow! Life is great!

HAKOL B'SEDER!!!

Is everything ok with you, my loyal readers?

Any (Word)Press is Good (Word)Press

Hardy har har. Only nine days till WordCamp Israel, a one-day seminar on blogging including workshops on business, marketing, technology, and other impressive sounding words. The keynote speaker is Lorelle VanFossen who apparently has been blogging in one way or another for 13 years about topics such as travel, nature and travel photography, web design, and more.

13 YEARS??? 13 years ago, I was the first person I knew to get email and we were writing each other with THIS thing.

Somewhere, a teenager is reading this and having a heart attack.
No, Caitlin, we didn't have Facebook either.

(By the way, 14 years ago, I was also realizing you could go into your Eudora preferences, change your "From" name in a lickety-split, and prank your friends. Ahh, the early days of the internet. Ech omrim "lickety-split"? Ok, I'm digressing.)

Here's some nice press for What War Zone???. In honor of the conference, Lorelle features some English and Hebrew Israeli blogs to watch out for including this one, calling it rip-roaring and twisted. (Boy, you barbeque even one baby on Yom Ha'atzmaut and nobody lets you forget it.) I'm looking forward to the conference; should be interesting And I may migrate this site over to WordPress sometime. (And Blogger will be hacking my site in 3...2...1...)

On an unrelated note, it's fun to go into this site's statistics and see where readers and accidental visitors are coming from. Recently, someone ended up here after searching on Ask.com for "im going on holiday to israel do i have to wear a burqa". Check it out. I don't know what's more surprising, that someone knows so little about this country or that there is a living thing on this planet not using Google for searches. Right now, somebody is getting defensive as he drinks his Mr. Pibb and watches movies on his Betamax. I also like how this guy writes his life story in the search...not sure what else to say about that. By the way, I just checked: Lycos, Altavista, and Dogpile search engines are still out there. If any of my loyal readers still use any of these three sites, you will receive a prize.

Right now, hundreds of former employees are wiping away their tears with their stock certificates.

And lastly, here's another, umm, interesting search. Hey, it's a comment, what can I do?

He's Dead! No, He's Not! Who Cares? KEEP BUILDING!!!

More from the JTA...

False rumors of Ariel Sharon's death reportedly prompted the Knesset to pave a new access road.

Avi Balashnikov, chief of staff at the Knesset, ordered the emergency road work this summer upon receiving word that the former prime minister had passed away in the hospital where he was being treated for a 2006 stroke, Yediot Acharonot reported Thursday.

According to the newspaper, Balashnikov wanted arrangements in place for the customary cortege that would bring Sharon to lie in state in the Knesset. Even though the death rumors were soon dispelled, the paving project continued and was completed within hours.

Balashnikov's office had no immediate comment on the report.

Hey, Knesset: we have a broken window. If I pretend to be dead for two hours, will you send someone to fix it?

He's dead. Now finish the light-rail.

Thanks for the story, Neil.

Now That's Chutzpah!

From a recent JTA report:

A wealthy Israeli businessman is offering a cash prize for initiatives that instill manners in his native land.

Ronny Maman, who recently returned to Israel after 18 prosperous years in San Diego, announced this week that he will give $60,000 to anyone who comes up with a way to make the Jewish state more considerate.

"We should all be helping each other," Maman, 55, told Yediot Achronot, deploring what he described as the spread of chutzpah in Israel in recent years.

Maman invited contestants to send their proposals to his Web site, www.derech-eretz.org. The winner will be selected next year, and Maman said he may also publish a book with the best 100 ideas.

"The intention is to create awareness, which in turn will create action, and then everything will change," he said.

The "spread of chutzpah?" What is this, a communicable disease? Someone call the CDC! I actually see chutzpah more as like a family value.

Another casualty from a recent outbreak.
Handle with caution, men.

As for the prize...$60,000, huh? Nothing to sneeze at. Except that when I checked out his website linked above, the ad on the homepage screams out "250,000 ש''ח". A quick currency conversion shows that as of today, with an exchange rate of 4.035, he should be paying in dollars $61,962. So basically if an American wins this, he's going to pocket almost $2000???

Now THAT'S chutzpah!

Other examples of chutzpah:
Chutzpah in Lines!
Chutzpah in the Bathroom!
Chutzpah from the Talentless Biotch Formerly Known as Bar!

What else about this report exudes chutzpah, my loyal readers? The potential jokes are endless.

Arnona, Part II

As a follow-up to this, I just figured out how to calculate my share of the arnona bill.

For a 3 person apartment, divide the total (discounted) bill by 21 to arrive at the oleh's share.
For a 4 person apartment, divide by 31...
5 person, 41...and so on...

I'll show my work:
Discounted bill=210 (meaning the original was 300, remember, that's 100+100+10)

210/21=10, my share

There is no way in hell anyone is doing this. So what's the answer?

I Think I'm Going to Name My First-Born Daughter Arnona Just to Ruin Her Teenage Years

Ok, since I got so many answers last time, I'm going to turn this into my own little aliyah forum. (Also because I'm fascinated by my new book "The Wisdom of Crowds" and a group's ability to come up with the right answer.) If high school math class brings back bad memories, you can close this window now.

I just went to the iriya (city council building) to get my arnona (municipality tax) discount which I understand to be 90% (nine-tenths of the whole...sorry.) Since the bi-monthly bill comes for the apartment, not per individual, I wondered how I would get the money back, for example, by the discounted money being deposited in your bank account. (By the way, is no one else bothered that "bi-monthly" apparently means both twice a month and every other month? Really? No one else has a problem with this? Next time my doctor recommends receiving bi-monthly treatment or risk irreparable brain damage, you can be damn sure I'm asking for clarification.) In my broken Hebrew, I tried to get an explanation out of the clerk but I don't believe she knew (even though she answered with complete confidence.) She told me that if the bill comes for 300 shekels, I am responsible for paying only 30 shekels, 10% of the entire bill, leaving each of my other 2 roommates to pay 270, or 135 each. Where did this woman learn math? If 10% of my third is 30 shekels, my third before the discount was 300 shekels, more than twice the current fully-priced thirds of my 2 roommates, 135 each.

Quick, remember algebra?

Anyone? Anyone know what that woman was smoking?

x=How much each of my roommates is supposed to pay
y=How much I'm supposed to pay

x=10y (they pay 10 times what I do)
2x+y=300 (in this example)

Two equations, two unknowns, a quick solve for x means I pay about 14.3 shekels and they each pay 143 shekels. 143+143+14ish=300. The oleh chadash is really supposed to do this kind of math each month? No way anybody is doing this which leads me to believe that people have no clue in reality how much they're supposed to pay (unless there are only 2 total roommates in which case a quick 10% calculation works fine.)

Olim with more than one roommate...am I missing something? Or is everybody else?

What has three legs, reads the paper, and likes falafel balls?

If you can answer this question with ease and quickness, you might just want to come on down to The Main Event's Pub Quiz!


The Jerusalem Pub Quiz is back! Come and enjoy an evening of laughs and drinks as teams battle it out over a number of fun and interesting trivia question rounds. The Pub Quiz is a British tradition that goes back many, many years, so come and compete for the BIG cash prize and more importantly, the title of 'Jerusalem Pub Quiz Champions'!

The event will be held at the Nadin Pub, Rivlin Street, Jerusalem City Center on Tuesday 30th October 2007. Simply get a team of 3 - 6 people together and book online at The Main Event! We are delighted to announce that for the first time, the Jerusalem Pub Quiz will have a special guest Quizmaster - Stand-Up Comedian Benji Lovitt! (Editor's note: Major nerd.)

Previous events have been sold out, so please book early to avoid disappointment. See you there!

Who Wants to Sponsor Me to Walk to Modiin?

From the department of “Did I just get Punk’d?”

Decisions, decisions. The aliyah process requires an oleh chadash to make many: Jerusalem or Tel Aviv? Orange or Cellcom? Keep going "yashar yashar...ad hasof" or ask another Israeli for directions? All major decisions (and in the case of the third, potentially frightening.) One decision I was confronted with in the months preceding my aliyah was PC vs. Mac. Which to buy? People warned me about bringing a Mac to Israel where support is limited but in the end, it came down to this: while most people on the planet simply use Windows-based systems, Apple users love their Macs, and swear by them. Have you been to an Apple store? Those sales reps have either drunk the Kool-aid or couldn’t be bigger believers in their computers. After doing a good amount of research, I decided to take a sip as well for a few reasons, not the least of which was the built-in “isight” camera which facilitates video-chatting with the family back at home.

Here it is…

While I’ve been happy with my purchase, I also have come to terms with the fact that many websites designed in Israel are not Mac-friendly. Mac users, has this happened to you? “Ok, let’s start the dreaded apartment search. One roommate (click)…non-smoking (click)…Central Tel Aviv (click)…(pause)…WHERE IN G-D’S NAME IS THE “SEARCH” BUTTON???? AAAAAAAAAUGH!!!!!!!!!” I’ve gotten used to things not working on the web; happens all the time. Sometimes though, what I initially think might be a design issue in this country is simply…well…not.

Fast forward: Nefesh B’Nefesh is offering a business course which I’m interested in taking. Only issue is that it’s in Modiin. I live in Tel Aviv. Fine-so I’ll go to Egged’s site and find a bus.

From: Tel Aviv. CLICK!
To: Modiin. CLICK!
Day: Thursday. CLICK!
Search: CLICK!

Ummm…what?

“There is no direct bus line between the required destinations”??? Hey, I’m not trying to get to Damascus! Modiin calls itself the city of the future! Hey, Egged! The future is now! Get me a freaking bus! What the hell?! No WAY this is a Mac issue.

Check out this road map (and the fancy editing work. Potential clients, you can purchase my crafty web design skills for a small fee of seven shekels an hour.)

What’s this, a 30 minute drive on a single road? EGGED! WHAT ARE YOU DOING WITH YOURSELVES!? Does McDonalds tell me they’re out of hamburgers at 2 o’clock on a Thursday??? YOU ARE A TRANSPORTATION AUTHORITY!!! START TRANSPORTING!!!!!!! Or even better, fix your website.

Just for the hell of it, I just went to the site of the Dan company to see what they would tell me.

Somewhere, the Minister of Transportation is laughing. Somebody wake me up when this gets fixed. Time to start walking...

Olmert and Abbas: Hot or Not?

I recently came across the website MyHeritage which, with the use of face recognition technology, will create a collage of your very own celebrity matches in about one minute. Sorry to digress already but I feel the need to say “ARE YOU FREAKING KIDDING ME???? WHAT YEAR ARE WE LIVING IN????” If I had seen this just ten years ago, I would have seriously gone into cardiac arrest. I remember the first time I discovered "virtual flowers" in like ’97; that was arguably the coolest thing in the history of the world. In the last couple of days alone, I have edited a movie, added it to Facebook for the world to see, and video-chatted with an old friend in Los Angeles. Seriously, that is straight outta the Jetsons (wasn’t that an NWA album?) Point is, I’m always shocked that everyone just accepts the unprecedented leaps in technology with so little awe and perspective. (In just a couple of clicks, I was also able to decipher the words to a Milli Vanilli song. This could never have happened 15 years ago. Should I have kept that to myself? Girl, you know it’s true.)

Anyway, here are my results.

Some of the initial thoughts which crossed my mind…

• Umm…WHAAAAAAAAT??? Is this some kind of joke? Julianna Margulies? Eva Longoria? Mira Sorvino??? BABES! I’m not really sure what these results mean but it can’t be a bad thing, right? Either way, I’m printing this out to show to women in bars, much like George did the picture of Susan to enter the “forbidden city” of models.
• That was pretty much my only thought. Oh yes, there was one more: Who the heck is Marco van Basten? Apparently he’s a Dutch soccer manager and former player. Clearly the similarities end at looks since I once struck out playing kickball.
  

Then I wondered, what other tests can I run? And can I draw any meaningful conclusions from them? Here’s round two.

Notice anything strange? Apparently there’s only a 90% resemblance of Ehud Olmert to himself. That’s like the story of Charlie Chaplain placing third in a Charlie Chaplain look-alike contest. There must be some kind of political joke to make about the "Olmert twins"; I’ll leave it to the commenters. Whatever, I don’t think I want either one of them leading my country.

Next, coming in at 75%, is Ibrahim Tatlises. Who is he? According to Wikipedia, he’s a Turkish singer of Kurish and Arab origins. James Gandolfini? Danny DeVito? Fuggedaboutit! What would these guys have done during the Lebanon War? Forget sending in the troops; one phone call and Nasrallah would be sleeping with the fishes.

Al-Assad? CHIRAC??? What, was one woman bouncing around from country to country, sleeping with powerful men? And couldn’t she have chosen more attractive ones? Ech omrim “combover?”

Fine, let’s move on.

Abbas most closely resembles himself. Thanks, MyHeritage. I’ll be buying your stock never.

Ibrahim Tatlises again???? What the hell??? What does this mean??? Could he be the key to Middle East peace, a unifying figure to both peoples, like Abraham is to the Jews and Muslims? Like Elizabeth in the classic mini-series "V", the half-human, half-alien baby? WHO IS THIS MAN???

And more importantly, who’s excited for the 2008 release of “V: The Second Generation?” Between this and the upcoming Indiana Jones movie, 2008 is going to be an incredible year. If Wham! decides to get back together, please don’t wake me (up before you go go.)

Even the prospects of this reunion didn't justify that last joke.

Sigh…try as I might, I can’t seem to come up with any more significant meaning. What will this upcoming year bring in terms of peace? Who does George Bush look like? And what I need to do to get George Michael and Andrew Ridgeley into the studio?

I have more important things to worry about. After all, there’s a 64% chance I look like Stephanie Tanner. Time to grow back the beard.

****************
How the MyHeritage application works: http://www.myheritage.com/FP/Company/how-face-recognition-works.php

The Talentless Biotch Formerly Known as Bar

Break-ups are hell, people. We've all had them. Sometimes we're fortunate to move on and remain friends with our exes and sometimes the pain is too great and we must go our separate ways. Either way, it's not easy. Imagine my feelings yesterday when I read the quotes from my ex-girlfriend, Bar Refaeli, criticizing Israel.

(AP) In comments published Tuesday, Refaeli had few kind words for her native country, saying she has no regrets about dodging mandatory military service and announcing she is moving to Los Angeles.

"I don't regret not having been drafted into the army, because I made out big," Refaeli, 22, told the Yediot Ahronot daily. "Why is it good to die for one's country," she asked rhetorically. "Isn't it better to live in New York?"

"I won't bring anyone famous to Israel because there is a chutzpah here that you won't see anywhere else," Refaeli said.

You don't see it anywhere else, do you? Maybe you'd be able to see a little better if you'd remove your head from Leo's butt. It would have been one thing for her to drag our dirty laundry into the public eye, but to bash your own country? We don't need that, Bar. For that reason, I am swearing you off forever and changing this blog's topic category from Bar Refaeli to "The Talentless Biotch Formerly Known as Bar."

One of the many pictures of us which I'll be deleting forever.
(No, I didn't Photoshop it. My camera sucks, ok?)

Good riddance, and seriously, please stop friending me on Facebook. It's beyond pathetic.

(Reuters, AP, whatever) EXCLUSIVE PHOTOS FROM THE WAR ZONE!!!

Well, my loyal readers, another year of survival in the war zone. With each passing day, I thank my lucky stars that I have been fortunate to avoid flying mortars. To reinforce to everyone watching CNN what a horrible place it is here, I decided to leak some recent photos which were taken with a high level of security clearance.

This is me using a krav maga takedown to defeat an enemy soldierette in hand-to-hand combat. Remember, there are no rules in war.

In this photo, I'm checking the heartrate of another enemy combatant after capturing him in battle. (We're Jews, people. We still have a moral obligation for the health of POWs.)

Here, I'm replenishing my body's lost vitamins with a burst of electrolytes. Although you can't see it in this picture, I just crawled across the Lebanon border.

This photo, along with the others, may or may not have been taken on my birthday. Obviously, each passing day of survival calls for a celebration.

More updates:
Matkot in the war zone!
Shopping in the war zone!
Partying in the war zone!
And even more partying...

Stand-Up Comedy in Israel

Much to write about; hope to get some updates online in the coming days. In the meantime, many of you have enjoyed reading this site over the past year as we have a good laugh about life in Israel. Check out this recent clip of my stand-up performance at the Camel Comedy Club in Tel Aviv as I bring some of these laughs to life.

Also see this blogger's review of last night's performance in Jerusalem. American comic (and my old friend) Avi Liberman was gracious enough to let me open up for him for a fundraiser sponsored by Honest Reporting. Avi will be back in December for his now semi-annual Israel comedy tour with three other big-time American comics...stay tuned!