I'm back...what a trip.

My heartfelt thanks to the Holy Hyrax, Ezzie, Jack, and Joe for keeping us all amused at the Muqata while I was traveling. Ending Adar with a bang, I think the Holy Hyrax has proved himself not only as a master podcaster, but a graphic artist and blogger par excellence. Though the eyebrows on the yellow smiley of me being "rescued" were a bit much (I think!).

The main issues on my head these days are as follows, and I'll be writing about each of them this week.

1. The month of Nissan is approaching -- the month of redemption. Do we really feel that redemption is something that can actually happen at any given moment? Do believing Jews, specifically Modern Orthodox Jews, actually view the arrival of Mashiach as a reality?

2. Yeshiva students at "The Mir" (Mirrer Yeshiva) in Jerusalem. Relatives of mine who learn there refuse to visit "The Muqata" because "its too dangerous." When I answered point for point that Jerusalem was "more dangerous" statistically, my facts were thrown to the wind. This annoyed me big-time.

3. What's happening here in Israel? Olmert's popularity is at an all-time low (which is bad news, because that means it can only go up). The good news is that the Kinneret's water level is increasing daily! There's still snow on the Chermon!

4. Toys toys toys. My wife always says, that when boys get older, their toys get more expensive. This does NOT have to be the case!

Check out these cool toys (CHEAP) that I'm playing with or ordering these days (and my kids are mega impressed).

Amazing Radio Controlled Helicopter ($20 including shipping) I'm having a blast with this...and everyone at work today was totally jealous.



The Green Laser. As opposed to regular "red" lasers, you can see the entire beam on a green laser (think: Star Wars). This will have Jack drooling with envy...and I'm sure he'll want to order one as well. (Warning: anything above the 5 milliwatt version may be dangerous!) Only $16.75...these things are too cool!



Edmund Scientific has loads of fun stuff, like the drinking bird Only ($7.95 for TWO)



OK guys (and cool women) this is your chance to get yourselves some cool afikoman presents, without breaking the bank.

Will be posting more soon. Good to be back.

Regards,

Jameel

Wherever I am, my blog turns towards Eretz Yisrael

Purim's Over. An Explanation of my Delinquency.

Purim’s over.

The costumes have been put back in the attic, the noisemakers have disappeared and my megilla has been safely stored away from harm’s reach. I’ve had 3 different containers for my megilla scroll;

A container from a Glenmorangie 10 year old bottle of Scotch.

An IDF 72 mm mortar round container. (Closest Pic I could find)

A leather “Etzion Art” megilla holder.

(They are pathetic...even if they make great stuff since their web site is down and I can't even get a picture from them)

The last one is where my megilla is kept now.

As people know who have been reading my blog, it’s that time for year again.

With Purim over, there’s only one possible solution…and that means…it’s time for Jameel to be less than helpful with Pesach cleaning.

Obviously, its not intentional. It just somehow works out year after year, right after Purim, I have to fly away on business to some corner of the globe. **

Places include; Manila, Las Vegas, Los Angelas, London…and this year’s lucky location is…New York. Many, many thanks to the Mrs @ The Muqata for her positive spin to this trip, (despite a rather unexpected start), for buying gifts for different relatives we’ll be seeing, for buying last minute food when we found out we might not have kosher meals (and we ended up eating it all during this flight), and in general – for remembering the details that I overlook.

To put a twist on it, I’m not actually flying for business this year, but rather for a family simcha, and I’m flying with 3 of the Muqata kids as well.

That’s why my blogging has been a bit light lately.

Actually, it’s a combination of over-working myself with the podcast, an abundance of work, less sleep than usual, and this trip I’m on now.

So, while the Muqata kids refuse to sleep on the plane, and they zap through 18 channels of airline video, I thought to let you know why things have quieted down a bit.

And while we’re at it, a few observations on the JBlogosphere.

There seems to be an unusual alignment of the planets now or perhaps a hiccup in the time/space continuum – because there’s a sense of contentment among different bloggers that I haven’t seen in a while.

(Updated and fixed...must have been jetlag ;-)

The XGH blogger is now content at being Frum, and while he still has questions…he seems to have reached a new level of serenity. We’re very happy for him!

The Holy Hyrax blogger wrote a great, optimistic piece about creativity and I think it's one of his best submissions to the JBlogosphere. (Then again, while he refuses to do a banner for Chardal, he did the amazing poster for the Purim Podcast!)

The Renegade Rebbitzen, while sort of on hiatus from blogging because she claims she's "busy", is still keeping us amused on a more regular basis (and we even got mentioned here and here!)

Even this post itself is having a good effect on the Muqata kids…and now 2 out of 3 are asleep.

So, I’ll end this now; if you spot me around the Eastern Time Zone of the USA, you’ll be able to identify us by the yellow smiley faces.

Regards,

Jameel

Wherever I am…even on a plane, my blog is facing Eretz Yisrael.

** Having just seen Shifra's post about the NEXT podcast, I will say that if I waste one second of potential "Pesach cleaning time" on a podcast, I would feel forever guilty.

On the other hand, Im getting much better at it -- and with a bunch of volunteers, it may only take up a fraction of time. Hmmm....maybe a post Pesach podcast? :-)

Wherever I am, my blog turns towards Eretz Yisrael

Behind the Scenes: The JBlogosphere Podcast

Shushan Purim Sameach!

Happy Shushan Purim to all of you celebrating Purim today in cities that were encircled by walls at the time of Yehoshua Bin-Nun! That includes, Yerushalayim, Hevron...and some say Teverya...Yaffo...and Cleveland.

The bleary-eyed look on my face has nothing to do with my alchohol consumption on Purim yesterday, rather from staying up waaay too late on Purim night working on the "podcast."

Speaking of the podcast, I would like to comment a bit about it.

First of all, this was without a doubt, a collaborative effort. All your submissions is what made it alot of fun, and your gentle proddings (Nu, is it ready yet?) is definitely what pushed it to completion.

There were many times I thought, "shouldn't I just go to sleep and finish this on Shushan Purim, who would care?" But I got an earful from my co-conspirator Ezzie, who put a heck of alot of time in this as well. Without Ezzie's prodding and publishing on GCast, this would never have gotten finished. Thanks Ezzie! (or maybe not?)

This is truly a JBlogosphere production, and I think everyone should have a laugh at the podcast.

Now...I must apologize to a few people.

1. As Motzei Shabbat drew late and my eyelids were getting heavy and droopy, not every audio submitted made it in. I'm not talking about the Jewbiqitous women, who recorded about 10 takes of their show, or the 27 boring DovBear impressionists, or the submission from an Arabic sounding person who would probably have been on Haman's losing team 2500 years ago. No, all those were left out intentionally.

However, probably about 10 didn't make it in for purely technical (read: sleep deprived) reasons.

I realize that as we say, "Kol HaHatchalot Kashot" (All beginnings are difficult), this being the first JBlogosphere Podcast, it was VERY difficult. So, we will try to break the recordings down to easily manageable 15 minute segments, as well as verifying the recording quality. We'll also add in the missing segments, and edit it to be clearer, sharper, pithier, and worthy of the Holy Hyrax's poster. (You should know he probably spent more time on preparing that poster than Ezzie and I spent on putting the podcast together).

2. I certainly hope that no one was offended by anything on the podcast. We tried to review everything to ensure it was not worse than PG13, no bad language and not directly insulting to anyone (well, JoeSettler certainly had fun at my expense, but thats a different story).

Of course, all that excludes a particular public official. Our crack(pot?) legal staff checked every audio posting to ensure she couldn't sue us for slander, libel, or grand larceny. Without a doubt, she was the shining "star" of the production, and while we abhor her legal attack aginst JBlogosphere bloggers, we do thank her for the opportunity to have some Purim fun at her expense.

3. Anyone else to apologize to? Hmm - not that I can think of. Oh wow - I just realized the "24" segment of RenReb vs. Jack Bauer and the Hooked on Phonics Monsey Edition came out scrambled. I'll try to fix them NOW (just worked with Ezzie on this...changed the encoding scheme...they will be up soon!)

So, on to some more credits. (This is like the extra DVD you get with a movie, the "BONUS" material.

Check out this email I got yesterday from FrumSatire. I sent him email weeks back asking for a podcast submission, yet his email were rather terse (though he did give me a hat-tip for something I sent him).

Dude, first of all do you know it took me a few weeks after your initial email to figure out that you were Jewish and not a very friendly palestinian- I was thinking the whole time how to go about asking you why you loved Jews so much.

Then I read the story of how you became the muquata...

I guess that's one more reason to change my blog name from "The Muqata" to something like "24 hours a day @ The Shomron CTU"

And now...some credits: (read them in Star Wars fashion, with them scrolling off into the distance...hum the theme music in your head)

Ezzie: Post Production Manager par-excellence. Plus, he riled up the troops to get people to send in submissions, got the gchat stuff worked out...without him, this simply would not have happened in time for THIS Purim.

AirTime: AirTime pushed me last week with a bunch of submissions that helped alot. Actually, alot of the idea of a podcast came from him a year ago.

R' Gil Student: Gil was the FIRST person to send me a submission after claiming he was extremely busy, which proves the adage; if you want something done, ask a busy person for help.

Jack the Waffle Guy. All those waffles I made for Jack finally paid off, and he was without a doubt the person who called the GCast hotline the most.

The BatTaz

Chana and SJ and Meanderations (wait...is that the whole brainy trinity :-) ?? and thanks for the intro/post-script!)

Annie and Harley from Jewbiquitous

Wawaweewa Kasamaba!

Reb Chaim HaQoton

The Rabbi Without a Cause

AskShifra (Got any questions? Best time to ask is 18 minutes before Shabbat...)

Chaim from the "Life of Rubin"

Orie Yenta

JoeSettler (I sound NOTHING like that in real life)

EmahS

Amshinover (Amshi DOES sound like that in real life)

Ayelet from May Cuties

Phish and BEC from BEC's Universe

David Linn from BeyondBT

MeAnder (The Muse)

Meshugana Mommy

CosmicX

Raggedy Mom

BenChorin

Neil Harris from Modern Uberdox

The very very holy Maggid of Bergenfield

Still Wonderin'

Sarah from Sarah's View

Shoshana from SweetRose

DaBoyz of 905

CroMagnumMan

TNSPR from How to measure the years

The HolyHyrax (who hangs on at Serandez and the Muqata) (HH has no blog...he just hangs out here)

TAFKAPP from Going Slightly Mad

Krum as a Bagel

Steg, The BoroPark Pyro

Sowhaysonata

The Sabra from Altishalioti

RenReb, Orthomom and Phil.

And I'm sure I missed a few here...please drop me a comment and I'll add you as well.

The good news is that Ezzie and I have fixed and added a bunch more...should be up today. Watch this space!

Happy Shushan Purim,

Jameel








Wherever I am, my blog turns towards Eretz Yisrael

The Purim Podcast...should be ready...

The Purim Podcast...should be ready...by Motzei Shabbat, GMT-5 (barring lawsuits and last minute technical glitches.)

Till then...here's some Purim stuff to keep you occupied.

Shabbat Shalom,

Jameel


hat-tip: SoccerDad.


Purim Costumes for sale in Jerusalem.

(not a Muqata kid :)





Wherever I am, my blog turns towards Eretz Yisrael...