This & That

Just a few odds and ends to share today... nothing overly exciting or worthy of a full-blown journal entry:

1.  I finished the latest Harry Potter book ('...The Half Blood Prince') last night.  Don't worry... I'm not going to throw out any spoilers (for all 3 of you out there who haven't yet read these wonderfully entertaining stories), but I do have a pressing question after having finally completed all 6 books:

Q: What is the difference between a 'git' and a 'prat' (and which one is considered worse)?

2.  I have to say for the record that Israeli women must be the most secure, well-adjusted human beings on the planet.  How else can one explain the prevalence of 'tummy shirts' and 'hip huggers' on women who weigh roughly what I do?  It stretches the concept of 'if you've got it, flaunt it' to include heretofore unimagined vistas.

3.  One of my regular hitchhikers pointed out a recent trend here in Israel of commercial vehicles (trucks, buses, company cars, etc.) sporting stickers on the back bumper stating (in Hebrew, obviously): "How is my Driving?" followed by a phone number.  This is presumably to allow the driving public to report rude or dangerous incidents.  On a whim I started calling the numbers whenever I spotted one of these stickers.  Guess what?  The overwhelming majority of the numbers are (according to my very unscientific survey methods) either:

a) not in service.
b) some overworked secretary who has no idea that her phone number has been posted on a fleet of vehicles.
~or~
c) connected to a fax machine.

[sigh]

I suppose it is too much to expect the western concept of customer service to spring up overnight here in Israel.  First comes the infrastructure; the stickers... the phone numbers... in short, the intention to provide a necessary service to the public.  Then 'le'at, le'at' (slowly, slowly), actual customer service might one day evolve.  Don't believe me?   Go ahead and call!

4.  As I've previously mentioned, whenever a commenter on treppenwitz includes a URL, I almost always wander over and check out their site.  I do this for a few reasons, first and foremost among them is to make sure I'm not opening a dialog with a raving lunatic.  But more generally, I've found that it's helpful to get a better understanding of who left a comment before replying.  A side benefit of this practice is that I have discovered many wonderful and interesting bloggers/journalers whose lives and experiences have broadened my horizons beyond measure.  A few days ago someone calling herself 'jg' wandered over from Lachlan's blog and left a thoughtful comment on my 'Prophets & Losses' post.  When I clicked over to her blog to 'check her out' I found a veritable gold mine of funny/interesting links, and a delightfully well-written site.  Go check her out!

5.  I continue to get at least 3-5 requests a week from people asking me to add them to my blogroll (A.K.A. my 'Good readin' List').  I solemnly promise that whenever I get around to updating my 'about' page I am going to include a 'linkage policy'.  But until that happens here it is in a nutshell: 

a) I read a lot of people who are not on my blogroll.  Some end up on my blogroll... others don't.  Just as treppenwitz is not consistently interesting to most people... I am not in the practice of filling up my blogroll with people who are not consistently interesting to me. 

b) I use my blogroll as a way to quickly visit my favorite reads.  Many of those writers don't have me linked (or even know that I read them), and that's fine.  Reciprocal linking is high school sh*t and doesn't do anything except slightly improve one's Google rating.  News Flash: I don't know what my own Google rating is... so I hope you'll understand that your Google rating and traffic aren't very high on my list of priorities. 

c) I add and remove links from my blogroll every few months... sometimes out of boredom... and other times on an impulse/whim.  Falling off the list doesn't mean I've stopped reading you.  It just means I've stopped reading you every day (and often means you've stopped updating regularly).  Being added to the blogroll means I've been following you for a while and find you consistently interesting.  Again, I don't expect that my interest in someone's writing or subject matter will be either eternal or reciprocal.  In fact the odds of either of those things happening are really pretty slim. 

d) Lastly, my blogroll consists of stuff that I like and find interesting.  Please be warned: Many of the people I read regularly are of interest to me, specifically because of how different their life experiences are from my own.  If you are narrow minded or easily offended by different religions, worldviews, sexual orientation, or political views... please don't click on any of the links in my blogroll.  If I ever find out that someone coming from treppenwitz has 'trolled' a site that they discovered via my blogroll, they will be banned from here forever. [Not sure what a troll is, or if you might qualify as one?  Probably the best real-life example of troll behavior I have ever seen can be found here.]

Well... that's about it.  Sorry to be such a buzz-kill there at the end, but I've been wanting to get that off my chest for some time now, and today just turned out to be the day.  Lucky you.