Tuesday, August 29, 2006

on pic of the week

i will try to regularly place a new pic every week in that placeholder. any picture i find interesting. if you have a picture that's interesting place a comment on this post and we'll figure out a way to share it.

the first pic is of a hot girl in a bikini. i hate how the picture just shows her body, totally objectifying her. but damn she's hot. makes me tingle. it's a good sight to welcome you to the blog.

keep coming back for new pics.

note: the pic in this entry isn't pic of the week anymore. i've placed it here cuz it's just too damn good to remove for good.

so you're having sex tonight

i was driving home alone almedina street this evening. everyone living in jordan knows how friggin jammed that street can get during summer. so returning from my kickboxing class, which usually puts me in a good mood, i was listening to music, enjoying myself and driving leisurely, when i spotted a rather unnatural traffic jam. it was a wedding procession.

now those idiots had three lanes jammed up with cars that were mostly saudi. they were driving at a dangerous 20kmh and they were honking their horns and two cars had people in them with video cameras and shit. oh the joy. the incredibly idiotic backwards inconsideration of the wedding procession. what is the very big deal about two people getting married? i mean, in the summer i'd estimate there are 50 weddings a week in western amman alone. that's 500 per summer. at least. i don't see a wedding out of 500 as a special event. i mean the only special thing about that specific night is that the newlyweds can have sex. big fucking deal. now that's something i know at least 5 million people do each night! so all the people getting married out there: spare us the agony of sharing your joy and limit the sharing to those closest to you, preferably in a party without loud music or fireworks.

which brings me to the party: the insensible expenditure, the endless noise, the waste of food. i hate weddings as we hold them in jordan. weddings now run between 5 and 10 thousand dinars in hotels. 10,000 dinars. do you have any idea what kind of money that is? with 10,000 dinars you can get one of the following:

a decent used car
really nice furniture for a small house
decent furniture for a larger house
a kick-ass home entertainment system with vibrating leather chairs
two really fancy honeymoons
5 average honeymoons
10 simple honeymoons
5 smokin laptops
start a small business
place a down payment on an apartment
pay for gas for an average car for 60 months
rent 10 very very exclusive escorts
start a war in africa

or if you're into philanthropy, the numbers become more staggering
feed 100 poor families in jordan for a month
feed 1000 poor families in africa for a month
support an orphanage for a month
pay the zakat equivalent for 400k
equip an ambulance for the red crescent
build a school in africa

so really, why spend 10,000 when one can spend 1,000 to feed one's family and close friends and put the rest to better use?

and to all the cynics out there: from the feedback i'm getting from my parents (and other parents in general) it seems that i will hold a wedding such as the one i just slandered. hypocrisy? perhaps. but i won't be happy about it.

Saturday, August 26, 2006

who stole our street, again?

as jordanians, we're familiar with big red tents that randomly pop-up to host weddings and 3aza. i personally find them quite shabby and ugly. how hard is it to get them straight? they all look like they're cloned off one another. how about a nice beige one that blends with the surroundings, and has matching carpets and chairs?

but who am i to judge if a tent is ugly (who knows, my wedding's mansafs might be in one of them)? well, i'd judge them anyway, but that's not what's bothering me.

as we all well know, these tents are usually erected in empty lots of land (after they're cleaned up of the garbage, debris, shit, etc). under them almost always coffee, and sometimes food or knafeh are served. however, this morning one caught my eye that was, well, peculiar. i was heading to bakehouse (my favorite, although currently overpriced, place to have breakfast), and as i was parking my car i saw it. there it was. it wasn't different on the outside than any of the others (tents, that is) in that it was red and ugly, but what was special about this one was the fact that it was not erected on an empty lot (or a roof or a large garden), but rather the person celebrating or mourning decided to erect it on the street.

i'm not talking about an entrance to a garage or a private street, i'm talking about the real street that people drive on. he decided that he has the right to annex the street to his property and use it to build the tent. how does that work exactly? when did anyone give him the right to use the public (which, by definition, means owned by everyone) street? i don't recall a nationwide referendum voting on that. anyone? i didn't think so. so in his total selfishness, disregard for public right and extreme idiocy he decided to steal the street for a day or two to complete whatever he has there.

go visit the tent, it's quite a scene. i wonder why everyone thinks arabs are backward.

jew in the muslim world..

he tries to lay low.

it's ronic that religion, which is meant to help humanity, can cause so much misery for someone who, unfortunately, has been born on the wrong side of the river.

he really has no beef with muslims. in fact, he hates what zionists are doing in the name of judaism, but that's the problem with religion, it's a very broad cloak that covers all people under it. he knows how muslims feel about jews (who can blame them?), and all but everyone around him absolutely hate and mistrust jews. hell, most even can't differentiate between a jew, israeli and a zionist (athiest israelis, what do you mean?).

so he was born on the east bank of the river. his mother tongue is arabic (although he secretly knows hebrew). he's not a very good jew (in fact, although he believes in God, he doesn't care much for religion). but he has to lay low. very few people know he's jewish, fewer even accept him for it. but he tries to blend in, tries to hide, tries to cover his origin as much as he can.

he's a jew in the muslim world.

Thursday, August 24, 2006

priceless

this is from "the superficial" website. used without permission.

Paris Hilton is cunning

paris_hilton_friends.jpg

"I'll pick out two outfits, one which is disgusting and one nice and I'll ask my 'friend' what they think. If they go for the revolting one, I cut them out of my life."
Pairs Hilton on how she weeds out her friends

my friend wajdy

note: wajdy's picture was removed from here based on his request. damn the guy has influence. however, if you really want the pic, place a comment on this post with your email address and i might send it. he3.

i used to be able to place posts on wajdy's blog, but when i placed an old picture of his there, he removed me from his blog :(

but the picture is too precious not to be published, so here it is in full-color glory.

say thankya.

Sunday, August 20, 2006

due introductions

ladies and gentlemen,

meet my friend wajdy. visit his blog. also refer to the angry blog. he3.

CONCERT !

Here's the thing , Anathema is coming to town next friday, and yes I'm going, why? I ask myself . sure I like "a" song for the band , but that does not feel enough . And then it hit me , this is THE ONLY CONCERT AMMAN HAD SINCE THE OPETH DISASTER some 2 years ago. Sure we have the local bands playing from now and then , and I have to say some of them are good , but they seem like the starting shows of a non-happening event .

Saturday, August 19, 2006

angry

jordanians are kind, hospitable, considerate, passionate, but the one adjective i think suits them best is angry.

i can hear many people screaming in utter denial (especially reda) but that's because they don't want to see it for what it is.

take, for example, the sun in jordan. let me tell you, dear readers, that we have the angriest rays of the magestic celestial body. the weather in jordan is overall pleasant. we get a few cold winter days and a few hot summer ones, but overall, it's nice and pleasant. except the sun. we must have some of the hottest rays in the world. not hot as in hip, but as in damn cancer-inducing. how would i know? i just compare it to really hot places. for example, dubai and texas.

i went to texas in the summer of 01. my uncle has (had, not sure) a black chevy blazer with a thermometer inside. he was shocked one day when he came into the car after it was parked in the sun to find the temp inside to be 120 deg f (around 50 c) while the temp outside was 100 f (around 40 c). in jordan it's a pleasant 30 c outside but friggin 50c inside the car. that's a whole 10 degrees extra. angry sun.

in dubai i "tanned" from 11 to 2 in the afternoon. everyone will tell you that's the most dangerous time to tan because the sun is at its hottest and most cancerous. i have tanned in quotation marks because i did NOT tan. in fact, the temperature was in the 40s and all i did was sweat like mad and go home. in the dead sea i spent around the same amount of time in the sun (idiot). i burned so bad my skin blistered and i couldn't wear anything for 3 days. after that my skin peeled. my shoulders peeled twice after which i developed freckles. i didn't have freckles before. angry, angry sun.

Thursday, August 10, 2006

easy on the cops

i have to live the unfortunate reality of passing by the little ex-circle (dawwar) in rabyeh near the jtc building. those in jordan know what i'm talking about. those who don't (or those who are but are as pissed off as me) read on..

i drive through there at least three times a week to go to a kickboxing class i go to, so i've witnessed its evolution (evolution here is used in the sense of slow change, not slow change towards the better) on a fairly constant basis. on my way i drive from medina street to rabyeh, and along the way there is the circle near the jtc building (sometimes called dawwar eletisalat). now there's usually some traffic there, and at times it reaches levels that simply clog up the circle, in which case the police are brought in to guide the traffic, but those are so rare i've witnessed them but once or twice. and even then, you never spent more than a minute waiting.

i guess since the police are too busy writing people tickets for illegal parking and speeding to work at a circle for a couple of hours a day, they decided to add traffic lights to the circle. now they added very poor lights that made the circle look like a poor syrian contraption loosely aimed at guiding traffic, with its cables dangling from above and its bases built into small concrete barrels rather than into the ground. after they turned them on, a horrific jam started forming at the circle. you would have to wait at least 5 minutes (2 light changes) before you could move out. the queue of cars extended all the way to the other weird intersection they have between medina street and the circle.

BUT, on the up-side, there was no needs for cops there anymore. thank God.

in their never-ending quest for helping the citizens, those in charge (i'm assuming amman's municipality) decided to remove the circle altogether and convert the intersection into a normal one with lights. it would, at least, ease some of the jam that took place. during their removal they used to place a metal railings to keep the cars away. one day the lights were not working, there was NO jam and the railings served as the circle. heavenly.

finally, the railings were removed and it was a full fledged intersection. until one day i was driving by and the lights suddenly all went yellow. what did we do with that? it was evolution: kill or be killed. i squeezed my way through (thank God that i wasn't taking a left) and wondered what idiot programmed the lights like that. well, i guess it was the same idiot who decided that the time of thousands of drivers is less important than the time police are supposed to be doing their job.

since that incident, the lights were working fine. until 3 days ago that is, when they went back to their yellow insanity. is anyone wondering what they did to solve THAT problem?

they had a policeman guide the traffic.

Saturday, August 05, 2006

towards a cleaner jordan

when i started out with this blog, i was afraid that i'll run out of things to write. turns out i underestimated the human capacity for idiocy. it appears there are plenty of idiots out there to keep this blog interesting.

the other day i got home from work, parked the car and started walking towards the door when something caught my eye in one of the patches of our garden. it was a flyer or brochure, it seemed, with a nice design (nice brown background with more subtle shared of it and words written in a chic beige). upon closer inspection the flyer read "towards a cleaner jordan" and some other mumbo jumbo about that. good God in heaven have mercy, the idiots running the campaign towards a cleaner jordan are actually littering by doing so! who gives these people the license to start these things in the first place? shouldn't they (either group of idiots, licensers or licensees, if such a word exists) make sure that such a campaign actually, well, led towards a cleaner jordan? isn't throwing flyers around acting in direct contradiction to that? i am sure the intentions were well, but COME ON, there should be no excuse for idiocy! (thank God for it nonetheless, it would've put bread on the table if this blog had been used to make money through the reader who actually bothers with typing in the url)

GBOB

i ask you, dear constant reader (when i say reader, i mean exactly that, as in one reader), i ask you, what is the first thing that comes to mind when you hear the acronym gbob? personally, it kinda reminded me of a song a one-hit wonder gay band came up with a while back. but if someone not scarred with the burn of that memory heard gbob, i think they would think of something like lolipops? a bubble-gum brand? a new perfume?

gbob, ladies and gentlemen, is none of the above. in fact, it's short for Global Battle Of the Bands. not sissy bands but rock bands. people who are working on gbob: choose a better acronym! gbob? it's like some sort of generic person who is very talented in bed. or a fizzy drink that's trying to compete with all the energy drinks out there! gbob?! do the people working on this even look a little at their work?

man with perceptive ears: "hey heavy rocker with black clothes, spiky hair and 2 kilos of earrings, where are you going?"

heavy rocker with slightly doped look and clothes to match: "to, uh, gbob"

man: "wtf is gbob? is it some gay soap-bubble convention?"

rocker: "no dude, it's a heavy-metal BATTLE"

man: "battle you say? gbob speaks of 5-year-old girls playing with playdoh"

note to all you PR people out there, when choosing names, try to choose inspiring ones, something along the lines of "the battle" or "g-battle" (if you must use the g) or any other non-gay name.