I went to NI Connect in late April, which was held for the first time in Fort Worth.
Notably for someone like me, a cool action shot of me made it to the NI Connect Fort Worth Session Content page. Scroll to the bottom to see…
NI Connect cameo
Jurassic Beyajad
This post will be mostly relevant to people I grew up with.
Back home, at the youth movement, we used to have a yearly movie festival. Me being me, would pour disporportionate amounts of effort into it and make sure the end result is as good as can be given the budgetary and technical limitations at the time.
One of my most famous films was “Jurassic Beyajad”, a parody of Jurassic Park. I thought all copies (well, the only copy) had been destroyed during the infamous “accidentally taped a telenovela over it” by Aby M. Recently a copy resurfaced. It appears I made one for my aunt Jave and she had Ari M. (coincidentally, Ari’s brother) digitize it along other home movies. And the quality is pretty good!
It was shot on our Sony Video 8 Handycam and edited on the floor of the playroom at my parents where a lot of the taping coincidentally also happend. I would hook up several VCRs, cameras, TVs, stereos, Discmans; and edit by carefully pressing Record / Play simultaneously on several devices.
Computer graphics/animations were done on Macromind Director and recorded straight from the screen of a PowerBook at the lowest brightness setting in a dark room, since recording CRT monitors would flicker due to the mismatch in refresh rates. I don’t remember who owned the PowerBook but I certainly didn’t have one at the time.
Watching this brought back a lot of memories. I shot and edited the damn thing so I remember the specific words and intonations, bloopers, etc. Lots of inside jokes in there, and many didn’t age well. But that’s art.
Here it is, enjoy!
And now let’s see if we can find a copy of “Yom Haatzmaut”, in which I have an alien aircraft blow up the club.
I’m related to Moshe Dayan
Today I was helpfully informed by Geni, the online genealogy service, that Moshe Dayan is family.
Specifically, he is (was?) my first cousin once removed’s husband’s first cousin twice removed!
What a small world! In the words of Dark Helmet:
Review: A Conversation with Larry David
Pretty, pretty, pretty, pretty good.
Poppy seed strudel from Tel-Aviv
In a move that shall go down in history as one of the top boss moves ever by an uncle, David went to Israel, made his way to King George street in Tel-Aviv, entered the famous Weiss Bakery, and brought one of their legendary poppy seed (mohn) strudels for me.
The strudel was carefully packed in his luggage and flown to Mexico where it sat in a freezer until my latest visit, at which point I carefully packed it in my luggage and brought it to Austin, TX.
After the long and tortous travel, I was able to finally bask myself in all its black glory with its extreme filling to bread ratio.
Yes, it was all worth it. No, I should not do a drug test right now.
Thank you so much, Davico! You made me very happy.
Happy 5785
The staff of The MKX® wishes you all a happy, sweet, peaceful New Year. Let’s hope for the swift end of the war, the return of the remaining hostages, and maybe sane people in charge of the countries I call home.
שנה טובה ומתוקה
Poppy seed strudel from Monterrey
I just landed in my hometown of Monterrey, Mexico to a giant surprise: homemade mohn strudel baked by none other than Olga. I immediately proceeded to eat a lot of it.
The bread is on the thinner side. The filling not overly sweet – just the way I like it. A bit crumbly. What a delicious surprise! Thank you.
Poppy seed strudel from Budapest
My mother-in-law Nira just got back from Hungary, and she was kind enough to bring me some mohn love from The First Strudel House. And on her birthday of all days!
Mohn strudel is not super common in these parts. And compared to the few in the area, this one had by far a much much higher filling-to-bread ratio. I remind readers that this is one of, if not the most important objective metrics when it comes to evaluating these things. The filling was also on the less sweeter side, which is a good thing when each delicious bite packs so much of it.
I hope this post serves both as a thank you note and as encouragement for others to bring me similar gifts.
Oaxaca
This summer we flew to the city of Oaxaca for a week to celebrate my parents’ 50th Anniversary. Incredible milestone! It was also my first time there.
Here’s photos making chocolate, rugs, and their famous black clay, painting alebrijes.
In a mezcalería doing some tasting, and in the beautiful springs of Hierve el Agua.
The Zapotec city of Monte Albán.
Some of the beautiful sights and most importantly insane food. I love mole and this is their thing. I ate so much mole. It was so good.
Something I wanted to see since I was a kid: El árbol del Tule, an ancient and massive cypress tree claimed to have the widest trunk of its species. It’s massive and beautiful and not in the middle of a forest like I always pictured.
And this is the beautiful color-coordinated family, missing just my favorite nephew who we named official photographer for the trip thus does not appear in any of the pictures.
Argentina vs Ecuador: Priceless
As promised in my last post, I will dedicate a full post to the Argentina vs Ecuador match on July 3, 2024.
In the “I wish I was my own dad” category and thanks to a massive tip by Diego S. we were able to get our kids signed up to walk out onto the field with the players. It’s hard to overstate what a wild thing this is for two kids that are absolutely obsessed with soccer.
When we signed them up, we didn’t know yet who’d be playing on this Quarterfinals match. But the odds were pretty good that it’d be Argentina and maaaaaaybe Mexico. Mexico disappointed by not even making it out of the group stage. But World Champions and eventual Copa América winners did not. OMG WHAT A DREAM COME TRUE THIS IS ARGENTINA WITH LIONEL MESSI WE’RE TALKING ABOUT.
We had to be at the stadium 4 hours before kickoff which is… a lot. The kids were whisked away as soon as we walked in to get dressed, rehearse, play soccer in the locker rooms, play with Panini albums, meet CONMEBOL president Alejandro Domínguez, and hold the hands of their idols.
The people in charge were fairly adamant that we, the parents, had to stay in our seats tucked away behind the goal during the whole ordeal. But evidently I had no choice but to evade the security (I swear it was tighter than during the final) in order to temporarily sneak out of my seat and into the section right in front of the benches where tickets are a thousand bucks, just so I can get a good look at my handsome boys and a few photos/videos that aren’t worthless. I had to beg an Argentinian whose seat I was sharing not to rat me out. Mission accomplished.
Ari walked out with Atlético de Madrid defender Nahuel Molina, while Ilán walked out with Liverpool’s #10 Alexis Mac Allister.
A few days later, actual professional photographs taking by pros were emailed to us. Below the best of the bunch. Look for the little jewfros.
Messi, Dibu, Romero, Molina, Lisandro Martínez, Lautaro, Tagliafico, Mac Alister, Nicolás González, Enzo Fernández, De Paul
I told my kids this is their birthday present. It’s going to be a tough one to top.