DrunkenBlog

The Cow lands in Israel

Several days ago, I got this amusing letter from a reader, in relation to him running around a city in Israel with The Cow and a digital camera:

Going anywhere near an Israeli military base with a camera would probably get me arrested, if not shot, on sight, so this is about the coolest I could do.

Next time I'm in Jerusalem I'll have to take The Cow and steal a friend's digital camera (again), and try to get a picture with some holy sites in the background. You can imagine the coolness factor.

Anyway, you can cross Israel off the list, if you haven't had the chance to already. Thanks for all of your great writing, and for putting all the hard work you do into the blog. Cheers!

Jon R. from Ra'anana, Israel

The Cow isn't in all of these, but it's in enough, and I like all the others. Click for larger...

Just some urban landscape and scenery around town... If you squint, you can see some road signs to other cities you might have heard of...

This sign, leaving town, translates to "Leave peacefully, and come home safely." Signed the municipality.

Road sign to town, in Hebrew, Arabic and English.

It's no Redmond, but there are Microsoft offices across the freeway. Myself behind the cow.

Driving around...

The Cow vs. the Israeli Police Department...

My cat, Yoshi, chilling with The Cow...

I'm a little backed up on posting The Cow pictures from everywhere, but I just liked these. They're the most recent, so I had them fresh in my mind, and Jon got me thinking a little by sending them on right before the regularly scheduled programming got hijacked. Seeing Windows running on his screen helped, too.

One of the things I get asked a lot about is the name, and while I give goofy answers here and there about why is what it is, that all have a kernel of truth in them, I don't know if I've given a straight answer as to why I haven't 'changed' it as it's gotten larger. I.E., the 'drunken' and 'blog' parts really through a lot of people off, but they key is that both are very informal.

When you are sitting there having a drink, and people walk in and sit down, you ask them how they're doing and where they're from, and it's all good. You don't ask if they're a republican or democrat, if they voted for the angry little elf or one of the skull-and-bones-candidates, or whether they think Apple was robbed or Microsoft really brought personal computing to the world.

If you were to be asking those things, you'd be asking because you wanted to know if they were one of you, and not because you really wanted to know them.

And it's almost all like that online, everywhere you go, and I suppose a lot of people like it that way. Some of it is that way because it's just natural -- age-old tribalism -- and some of it is convenience, and some of it are probably things that my brain isn't able to wrap itself around right now.

In contrast, when it comes to sitting down and having a drink, all you really care about is whether or not the person is being an asshat, and the differences between you are often what really make everything interesting, not the other way around.

So here's this guy named Jon, who somehow found my site, and somehow got it into his head to run around a city in Israel with a Cow, for the birthday of a guy an ocean away, whom he knows and is connected with via only a supped-up version of the tin-can radios we had as kids.

I don't care that Jon uses Windows, and I doubt Jon cares that I usually gravitate towards Macs or Linux, but we both like technology and both think The Cow is amusing.

Chances are, we'd both enjoy a drink together too, and chances are while drinking we'd find out more things we had in common while laughing about what makes us different, and there's probably something important in there somewhere.

 Posted by drunkenbatman
    July 09, 2005, at 04:18 AM