L.A. Smicha 2006

 
This little photographic gem was taken right after we came out of the test for Basar B'Chalav. As you can see from the smiles, we were just a teensy bit relieved ;) 
[Editors Note: This test was taken on January 17th, 2006. I just never got around to posting the picture :). My apologies to all the people I confused!]

Mazal Tov Menachem Mendel Shmukler!

Tzali and I fooling around with the cake.

To celebrate the Upsherenish of Rabbi Shmuklers son, we had an awesome party this morning, with lots of fun, lots of laughs, and lots of singing. Benny Friedman even gave an impromptu rendition of "Yesimcha Elokim." Oh and the dessert was great... ;).

May he grow to be a Chossid, a Yiras Shomayim, and a Lamdan, bringing much nachas to Hashem, his parents, and the Rebbe. Amen!

Another Random Game...

So there's this here block ya' see, and then there are these other blocks, ya' see? And these other blocks start bouncing around all crazy like, And the first block has to move all sneaky like, you get what I'm saying? No?

Oh fuggedaboudit. Just give it a shot yourself...

[Editors Note: This game was provided by that Smooth Criminal - Velvel.]

Cold Reception

 
Now pay attention people - I do my very best to stay away from cold places, so this might be the only time you ever get to see me wearing earmuffs - Or whatever that Rambo style headpiece is called :). That's a picture from this Yud Shvat, in Manhattan, when we went to visit Aunt Joann and Danielle... 

For my bro...

 
This is a very, very, very big guitar (the whole thing wouldnt fit in the picture), for the coolest guitarist I know... Rock on Velv!!! 

Crazy Rabbit...

I'm beginning to fall speechless every time I find one of these random online game things... I mean who comes up with all of them? Take this one for example. Who was the genius who wasted his time programming a rabbit to hallucinate and think your cursor is a carrot? And why are you letting some random rabbit play with your cursor anyway...

[Editors Note: I think I'm going to make a new section in the sidebar with all these funny links that I've posted here. That way, I dont have to go digging through my archives every time I want to find one... And neither will you :)]

"Accidental" Revelation

Sheesh.

Just when you think you've got it all figured out. Just when you think "Life is great." Thats when it hits you. Literally in my case. But I digress. Allow the story to unfold...

6:30pm - Yeshiva
So there I was. We had just finished Maariv, and I hadn't had a bite to eat since breakfast. I take off my hat and jacket, drape it over my chair, and turn to Meir. I ask him if he wants to go get a burger at Jeff's. His face lights up and he agrees. So we pile into the Jeep, order on the way, and have a nice chat while crusin' the LA city streets.

7:30pm - Jeffs Gourmet
I dab at the corners of my mouth with a napkin, relishing the feeling of being full. It doesn't happen very often in Yeshiva. Meir and I bentch, and get up to go, taking our drinks with us. On the way home, we stop off at Ralphs, to pick up Vanilla Cherry Dr. Pepper for Levi - His newest craving.

8:05pm - Corner of Waring and LaBrea
I'm waiting to turn left. The light turns yellow, then red. I let up on the clutch, and push down on the accelerator, the car lurches forward... Everything happens very quickly from that point on. I see a red BMW speeding through the intersection. Meir shouts something and throws up his hands. I slam on the breaks. Screeching. A crash. Silence.

8:07pm - Corner of Waring and LaBrea
"You might want to come on over here...." I hang up with Levi and turn to stare in bewilderment at the scene in front of me. Pieces of the red BMW litter the road. The driver - a 19 year old girl - emerges from her car on her razor cell phone, tosses her bleached blonde hair over her shoulder, and inspects her car. Meir has already done that, and is bending over in front of me, trying to figure out how the only damage on our car is a small scratch under the headlight, while her car is dented and scratched all along the side... I hear a steady beating up above. I look up and see the helicopter. For a wild moment, I imagine it's there for us... Then I realize a small fender bender in LA doesn't attract that much attention. It's freezing cold for a Floridian, and my fingers find it hard to push the little buttons to dial my parents number. They answer on the second ring. I begin by telling them I'm ok... Meanwhile Levi has arrived and is busying himself with taking pictures of the scene. Things begin to speed up again. The girl wants our insurance information. "Can we hurry this up," she asks impatiently, "I have friends waiting for me."

Levi taps me on the shoulder. Hes got his cell phone held to his ear. Dimly I remember telling him to call the police. He tells me the cops wont come unless there is bodily damage or damage to public property. I nod distractedly, trying to copy down all the girls information. All the while, following hurriedly whispered instructions by my mother, who is on the other end of the cell phone cradled inbetween my arm and my shoulder. The girl is talking on Meir's phone, as hers has just died. She lowers it and tells me her lawyer is on his way. I nod distractedly while my mother implores me not to say anything to the lawyer...

9:00pm - Corner of Waring and LaBrea
A small silver car pulls up, and a sleazy guy extracts himself from the drivers seat, while a woman wearing too much makeup emerges from the passenger side. They make their way over to us. The woman makes a big fuss over the girl, and hugs her. The lawyer sticks out his big beefy hand, introduces himself as Ramirez, and immediately begins prying for information. Meir handles him well. Meanwhile the painted woman is trying to soften us up. Throwing out Hebrew and Yiddish words, telling us she loves Jews. I silently hand my cell phone to the lawyer - My mother is still on the line. He discusses the situation with her, and, realizing he's not going to get anything out of any of us, and seeing that we have already exchanged information, decides to leave. They all do. The lawyer oozes into his car, and drives off. The painted woman stays with the girl, and they drive off too. Levi begins walking back to Yeshiva, and Meir makes for the passenger seat of the car. I take one last look around, get in the car, turn the key in the ignition, and drive off to find a parking spot...

9:15pm - Dorm Room
My head hits the pillow, and I whisper a silent thanks to G-d. Now I begin to pray she doesn't file a claim...

Sometimes I think G-d does these things to remind us how powerless we really are. To show us he runs the world, and dont you forget it. Well thank G-d this was a minor accident. No one was hurt, and its over. As my Bubbe always said "It should be a kapporah."

Amen.

Relaxing by the Leaning Tower of Pisa

 
This is from that time in Pisa... And for all you skeptics out there, yes, its a real picture :). 

Fly Guy

The people who created this must have died of boredom shortly after finishing it...Its good for a few minutes of entertainment though :).

Warning: The darker it gets, the closer you are to ending the game - Explore a little first :).

Pizza Picture

 

This is in Nagila - a pizza place in LA. They walk around wearing shirts that say "Hav a Nagila day." How corny :) They make good stuffed crust pizza though ;). Credit to Levi for the picture :) 

Happy Valentines Day!

The history of Valentines day is murky at best. There are a few "St. Valentines," and no one can agree on exactly what he did, or why he did it... But one legend is as follows:

During the third century in Rome, Emperor Claudius II decided that single men made better soldiers than those with a wife and children, so he outlawed marriage for all young men eligible to serve in the army. St. Valentine was a priest living in those times, and, realizing the injustice of the Emperor's decree, continued to perform marriages for young lovers in secret. When Valentine's actions were discovered, Emperor Claudius ordered that he be put to death.

Wondering about that little naked winged kid who shoots you in the tush with an arrow? You probably know him as Cupid, right? Well only to the Romans was he Cupid, the son of Venus. To the Greeks he was Eros, the son of Aphrodite. There's no difference really. He's the same being, just different names in different mythologies - the son of the Goddess of Love. Basically he fell in love with a mortal woman named (of all things) Psyche. She misbehaved though, and he left her. His mother (pick either of the above names ;)) punished Psyche, by testing her. She failed, but because she loved cupid so much, they revived Psyche and made her a Goddess too. So everybody lived and loved happily ever after...

There ya go, the history of Valentines day in a nutshell :). I wish I actually had a Valentine, but seeing as I find myself without one... Happy Valentines day to y'all! May you be blessed to find love at the right time, in the right place, with the right person! If by some twist of fate, one of you out there was trying desperately to find a way to send me a Valentine, you can just post a comment here ;).

My love to all of you.

JB needs...

Hehe. This is actually funny. Make a Google search for

"*your name here* needs"
Then write the top ten decent things that pop up. I got so many weird ones, I had a hard time picking the top ten. Check it out...

1. JB needs ex-lax.

2. What JB needs is fresh blood.

3. JB needs to learn the difference between Artificial Laziness and True Laziness.

4. JB needs a little entertainment once in a while, like Foghorn Leghorn cartoons.

5. Moreover, the new JB needs a lot of testing.

6. JB needs to be on an IMAX Screen though instead of a 19 Monitor!

7. JB needs to stop working for Disney

8. JB needs to get a girlfriend.

9. JB needs to lay off the Juice and you need to lay off the Dr Pepper.

10. If JB needs virgins, he just has to change his mind about attending conventions...

I got a whole bunch more, and I guess I'll post them some day... But now it's your turn! Try it! Stick them in as a comment to this post. If you don't want to put all ten here, at least share the funniest one with us :). Come on, dont be shy...

More Yud Shvat...

I LOVE FLORIDA!!! It's warm, the sun is shining, I can walk outside without putting on earmuffs... That's right, I'm home :). Florida, land of the free. I'm not biased about it at all either ;). It seems as if I escaped NYC just in time too - They're expecting a rather nasty storm to be hitting them just about now... Hmmmm lemme see nasty storm versus sunny boating weather...Where would you rather be ;)?

The NY portion of the trip was nice though, even with my cold reception. We did meet some strange people... We asked this one lady for directions, And she starts telling us which way to go, and then snaps and starts yelling how she doesnt know where to go, and why are we asking her anyway. Then she snaps back into Martha Stewart mode (minus the criminal), calmly finishes off the directions, smiles, and continues on her way - And here I was thinking South Beach, LA, and Sydney had some weirdos...::shrug::

The best part of the whole trip was that we got to see my Aunt Joann and cousin Danielle! I haven't seen them in ages... Aunt Joann looked great, as always. Danielle just had her wisdom teeth removed, so she had frozen peas tied to the side of her face with a scarf, but she was still gorgeous :). It was really nice to see them. There's just something special about family...

Rabbi Daniel Melul, an old teacher of mine, took me to the airport. We got to catch up on old times, so that was pretty cool too :).

Its late now (why do I always write these posts at night?), so I'm gonna catch some Z's, and talk to y'all in the mornin'. Have a great night!

Voltron gets served...

OK. Due to the enormous amount of confusion this post has engendered, I am editing it, and posting an explanation :).

1.) Voltron is an old cartoon character - similar to the power rangers (everybody's heard of them, right...?;)).

2.) To be served is described by the urban dictionary as: To be challenged in a sudden, out of the blue competition. To be served is an open invitation to serve back. Once somebody is served, and this person serves back, then its on. Unless you can serve back in equal or better fashion, then you got owned and have been bumped in ranking. To be served originates from being served with documents that you need to appear in court.

3.) Heres the link to the original video, before the Chevra music was added in.

Now put all the new (for some of you) information together, and this might be as funny for you as it was for me :)!

Yud Shvat...So far ;) (And a Q. for y'all)

Well techincally Yud Shvat is already over, but I think of this whole trip
back to the east coast as a "Yud Shvat Trip." Anyway...

My flight was copacetic (In case you were wondering, "copacetic" IS a real word. Look it up ;)). Nothing out of the ordinary happened really...until I arrived in bustling JFK airport that is :). While I was waiting for Velvel and Levi to land, I watched some crazy black woman get herself arrested by yelling at the cops. One of the things she screamed out at the top of her lungs was - "This wouldn't be happening to me if I was white!!!" That started me thinking. It's an interesting question, and I wanted your opinion. I was wondering, do any of you loyal readers think that's true? Post some wisdom people, I'm countin' on y'all to enlighten me!

Ok moral questions aside - Lets get back to the story ;).

We quickly made our way to the Ohel, where - Wonder of wonders - There were no lines! Happily ensconced in the Ohel, I barely even noticed how cold my feet were (no shoes allowed in there, remember??). Really! I honestly just wasn't thinking about the fact that the temperature was well below freezing! Why are you looking at me like you dont believe me...? I also didn't notice the layer of frost slowly building up on my nose, or feel my hair freeze. I took no notice of any of these things (OK, maybe I noticed a little bit...).

After a good nights sleep, Velvel and I woke refreshed, and began the long and arduous journey to 770. It's hard to walk for 10 seconds without meeting someone who is so excited to see you, and just has to talk to you... I think I met all my friends and their grandmothers today. Speaking of grandmothers, how come they never seem cold?? Theyre always telling you to put on a coat, but they never seem to get goosebumps even! Whatever...

Levi "bumped" into us along the way - He caught me from behind with a flying tackle and a yell that would have frozen the blood of anyone who heard it, if their blood hadn't already been frozen by the weather...

It's 4am at the moment, and I think I shall retire. However fear not! I shall regale you with more of our exploits as soon as the moment allows for it :).We definitely have some stories, because after Daavening, Velvel and I spent the day bonding in Manhattan :-D. How can you go to Manhattan and not walk away with a story...? Pics to come too!

I'm leavin', on a jet plane...

Why do I NEVER sleep the night before a flight? Its not nerves - I actually enjoy flying! Either way, that picture is going to be my view in a few short hours (2 to be exact). Yes I know I have an aisle seat mom - but if I lean over the noisy smelly people sitting next to me, that's what I'll see. Just thought I'd share it with y'all :).

I'm going into NY - It's Yud Shvat time baby! Velvel and I are meeting up and were going to bring our own brand of fun to the streets of Manhattan ;). I'll keep ya posted...

Matisyahu - Youth!

::Ahem:: Right now you should be hearing music (If you arent, please lemme know). The tune floating out of your computer speakers is track 3 from Matisyahu's currently unreleased album (coming out March 7th according to the people at JDub), entitled "Youth." It's much better than his first two :). We at JB's Blog sincerely hope you enjoy it - after all, customer satisfaction is our highest priority :-D.

If for some strange reason you do not wish to hear this marvelous melody, the control panel can be found in the sidebar. You can stop or start the song from there.

The rest of you can continue tapping your foot, humming along, nodding your head, or whatever else you were doing ;).

The Wedding Crashers...

3 weddings this week. Thats right count em! First our Q&A guy in Yeshiva, Ami Meyers, married Zissi Gordon. Mazal Tov!! Then our principal's sister, Frumie Shmukler, married Boruch Lopkofsky. Mazal Tov!! Last but not least, we were asked to go dance by a totally random wedding - turned out the guy was from Sydney, and we knew him! We saw a bunch'a familiar faces and everyone had a really good time.

Besides for us.

They literally cleared off both dance floors (yes, the womens too), and just shoved Levi and I onto them (the dance floors, not the people ;)). For a half an hour. Just us. What in the name of the lord are we expected to do on a dance floor with about 150 people watching for a half an hour??? Well we made do. Levi danced, I did poi, and we did some silly skit with a chair (dont ask ;)). For some reason they loved it, and everyone asked for our numbers...even the band leader - Ariel Louk. ::egos swelling::

Yea so basically we had a great time :).

JB Hendrix

 
I just realized that its been a while since I've posted my visage on this blog... I Wanted to make sure y'all didnt forget what 'lil old me looked like ;)!