americans - again

i just have one question to americans out there: why is the country obsessed with the sex habits of a guy who's very good at putting balls into holes? it's not like they have a crippling debt, crumbling health-care infrastructure and two losing wars to worry about

technology assholes

sorted from most annoying to slightly less annoying:

1. bluetooth headset users (these must burn in hell, from keifer sutherland to the team from stargate)
2. iphone users (it's hard to generalize here, but i generally hate these people more than bb users)
3. bb users (two things about them: a. get off the fucking email, the world will not crash and b. stop with the fucking click scroll ball it's noisy as hell)
4. demolition man or space invasion headphone users (look at me, i can't live without my precious music blasting in 240GHz high def fidelity asshole, you should be #1 on the list but thankfully you're a rare breed)

nice, big sneeze

i want to hook up with a girl who sneezes.

i'm not talking about a girl who sniffles a half-assed parody of a sneeze, for whom i fear her eyes would pop or her brain would shoot out of her ears, who emits a small sound between a pop and hiss. i want a girl who takes in a deep breath, closes her eyes and lets the sneeze rip - a sneeze so strong her ears would ring and a spray of spittle would cover half the distance to her nearest neighbor. a girl who would then wipe the snot dribbling from her nose and laugh it off.

i want a girl who fucking sneezes.

but, but, but

yes they're building a new airport in amman. of course big projects like that influence things around them. so for example they've actually renovated the toilets in the old airport. yes it's still dirty and shabby, but the toilets are clean and modern. all bright whites, clean lines, nice faucets.

except, of course, you can take the man out of a dirty airport, but not the dirty airport out of the man.

i walked into the toilet to pee the other day i was there, and when i turned to wash my hands, a refreshing reminder awaited me. apparently they've shut down the kitchenette or something, so the (possibly) coffee boy was washing cups and mugs in the toilet sinks. not rinsing a cup or something - he had a tray full of glassware being washed in the sinks.

accident inducing billboard

dubai is a fairly safe city to drive in. it's not as safe as, say, a german city, mind you, what with the cab drivers and abu dhabi drivers, but the other day i nearly crashed into a car next to me because i was craning my neck following a billboard. alas, it didn't have a hot girl, it had a clever little ad utilizing letters common between words to create the synergy of being home and roaming. it was scrabble-tile words, one saying "home" the other "roaming" with the m at the intersection. not terribly original, but at least readable. what nearly caused my crash is the same sign in arabic. to those not familiar with arabic, letters are always linked up when used in words (sorta like cursive in english), but it's worse because the letters' shapes actually change. you know what that means to the silly billboard?

it means when the scrabble tiles have arabic letters in them, the words are almost impossible to read.

which brings me to my point: why the fuck do we translate commercials? not everything goes across between english and arabic well. hell most things don't go well at all. and with the cleverness and wittiness in the world of advertising, the problem is duly compounded.

so for god's sake, if you're into advertising, be creative and create campaigns for arabic!

charming stormtroopers

poor stormtroopers are always made fun of online - but this is the first time i see a site this insulting! darth vader must be livid!

a new omega watch

behold this lovely watch from omega. notice the mesh metal strap? it's shark-proof. you know what that means? it means that after the shark has bitten off your hand, you can rest assured that your watch will still be there.

taking pride

proud, adjective
1. feeling pleasure or satisfaction over something regarded as highly honorable or creditable to oneself (often fol. by of, an infinitive, or a clause).
2. having, proceeding from, or showing a high opinion of one's own dignity, importance, or superiority.
3. having or showing self-respect or self-esteem.
4. highly gratifying to the feelings or self-esteem: It was a proud day for him when his son entered college.
5. highly honorable or creditable: a proud achievement.
6. stately, majestic, or magnificent: proud cities.
7. of lofty dignity or distinction: a proud name; proud nobles.
8. Chiefly South Midland and Southern U.S. pleased; happy: I'm proud to meet you.
9. full of vigor and spirit: a proud young stallion.

how great is that word? isn't it something that is associated with grandeur? achievement? sort of like when one liberates a country or saves a human being. it conveys honor and truth.

it's certainly not something you use when describing that you serve a specific type of ice cream, or coffee.

all over gitex in our city dubai, visitors are drinking starbucks coffee from poor, misguided shops that all "proudly" brew starbucks coffee. one place is also proud to sell haagen dazs ice cream. can someone please explain to me where the feeling of pride comes from in serving coffee? it's not like it's a charity that helps deprived inner-city kids, or a campaign to eradicate cholera in africa, it's fucking coffee and ice cream. you're not proud to do that, you just fucking make money. fucking hell people wake the fuck up.

marketing people

from a shampoo bottle: "calms, nourishes and sleeks unmanageable hair" then as a highlight "helps control coarse, rebellious hair".

is it just me or does this sound like a medicine that is used to treat a hyperactive 5 year-old?

oh, and the same people referred to a watch as "truly unique". yeah, yours and the thousands of others that were made.

dr know it all

i must admit, before i continue, that although this phenomenon is most prominent in american tv, it'll really happen in any country, due to the fact that people, in general, are sheep. so please, help me out here, since when do doctors practice on tv? i'm talking about that asshole in scrubs who is featured on oprah who gives sermons on everything from gastronomical pains to the latest flu scare. you're a fucking doctor. you can't possibly be a specialist in all these things. that either makes you (a) a liar, so your advice is really yap yap or (b) incompetent, meaning that a trained earthworm can do what you do on the show. i do, however, concede that you may have a life outside tv. after all, you're only on the show every couple months.

what really riles me up is that complete show called doctors. they diagnose people and give advice on tv every week.

seriously? are they pretty boys (and a gal) who failed at their practices? surely a successful surgeon doesn't have the time to shoot a weekly show. who are these monkeys and why should we listen to them? and the problem is that people do listen to them. see although this originated in the us, it will work in any country because people are, well, sheep.

note: dr phil is borderline in this case, because while he poses to be a doctor and listening to him may cause an increase in blood pressure and the urge to gouge one's eyes out, he doesn't give any real medical advice. he's like a grumpy grandfather who finds losers and explains to them why they're losers. i once heard he's like a detective interrogating people. police drama never hurt anyone.

harry potter - college freshman year edition

my aching head woke me up. i could tell it was morning - light was seeping through my eyelids - but i had no idea what the time was. i didn't want to risk antagonizing my throbbing head with a sudden rush of sunlight, so i kept me eyes shut, steadying my nerves for opening them.

eventually the promise of caffeine and nicotine inspired me to risk getting up. i rolled over away from the window, dangled my feet over the side of the bed, and slowly peeled my eyes open. i squinted, attempting to reduce the influx of electromagnetic energy onto my retina, and was able to keep my eyes open without my brains exploding. i took a cigarette out of the pack and lit it, inhaling deeply, forcing my mind to concentrate on something other than the pain. my hand alternated between holding the cigarette to my mouth and massaging my temples. lightning on my forehead or not - alcohol gave me a hangover like any other guy.

last night was slowly coming into focus. that was one hell of a freshman welcome party. then two things happened simultaneously: i noticed i was naked and i was startled by the sound of someone stirring in my bed. whipping my head around wasn't the wisest of my moves that day - exploding pain - but neither will it prove to be the dumbest. i hadn't noticed her there, but hermione lay in my bed, her hair all over the place. fuck, my head hurt. i fell out of bed, in the process nearly setting the room on fire when i dropped my smoke. i'm guessing the sound of my fall and my constant repeat of fuck, even under my breath, eventually woke her up.

"where am i," were her first words, eloquently followed by "what happened?"

then she saw me sprawled there, wearing a facial expression that i'm sure could've been described only as dumb-struck, and nothing else.

"why are you naked?"

in addition to hangovers, alcohol generally causes slowing down in the thought process. i fumbled around the room looking for my boxers, still muttering the word fuck over and over again, while it slowly dawned on her why i was naked. she took a peek under the cover and realized that we were both naked, and started chanting the fuck mantra with me.

ever wonder why meds are so expensive?

well there you have it:

http://www.eurekalert.org/pub_releases/2008-01/plos-dis010208.php

a little dated but valid nonetheless.

career magic quadrant

i was reading a book the other day, and one of the characters was a lawyer. he was pondering the idea of how moral he was, how he bent the rules, and it got me to think of what that means, and how different professions treat the matter of morality differently. in addition, it got me thinking that there are different levels of belief in the morality of what is done - surely the carpenter doesn't think about the meaning of what he does as much as the policeman might.

so how do we summarize this? in a magic quadrant. i stole the idea from gartner, but it works pretty good here. i wonder if they'll sue me. there is one thing i'd like to add: how the belief of the individual differs from the view of society, but i couldn't keep the graph simple and add that info. alas, it will have to work without it.

in any case, let me explain the axes and the meaning of each.

the horizontal axis describes morality. on the right lie the professions that are truly ethical, with their motivations and rewards being uncontroversial and generally agreed upon. to the left are the consequentialism, whose ends always justify the means. the means are almost always questionable and the ends are narrowly and selfishly beneficial, if that at all. those in the middle carry little or no moral value attached to their profession.

the vertical axis is how deeply the professional believes in his or her morality. to the top are those who strongly believe in the (a)morality of what they're doing, whereas at the bottom are those who cannot decide - or to whom it doesn't really matter. in the middle, of course, are those who, in terms of morality, don't feel much about what they do at all.

enjoy (click to enlarge).


update: there seems to be some confusion on the issue of the axes. my bad. the horizontal axis is the objective overview of the morality. the vertical axis is the subjective belief of the professionals.

want something fun to do?

just drink water from a bottle. drinking from it is even more fun than drinking from a normal water.

http://www.camelbak.com/drink-study

wtf age is this that describes water drinking as fun?

may they burn in their personal hell

i live in dubai. it's not bad in general, except we have etisalat.

etisalat is the most expensive, least efficient and most horribly over-subscribed service provider in the region. we're stuck with them. i don't have the choice of going anywhere else. i call and yell till i'm blue in the face to get someone to get to my house to fix a connection that's been down for a week now, but it's useless. this is a summary (and i do apologize for the length - it's needed to highlight the pain i went through):

call 1, tuesday 11th:

"my internet is down"
"ok what's the brand of your modem"
"siemens blah blah blah"
"are the lights on?"
"yes"
"ok connect your laptop directly to the fiber optic modem"
"ok"
"now enter your username and password"
"i don't know them"
"ah you need to reset your password"
"how?"
"go to www.e4me.ae and place a request there, then call e-services help desk and ask them to reset it"
"ok... but you know the dhcp on the modem isn't working at all, so it's not a password issue"
"no sir without a password i can't help"

of course they don't tell you how you're supposed to access the website without an internet connection. luckily i have my trusty mobile. i login and reset the password. i call the call center after that.

call 2, tuesday 11th:

"i reset my password and i'm calling you"
"why?"
"the call center told me to"
"no if you've accessed the website there's no need"
"ok, do i need to do anything else?"
"no, it's ok, but it needs 24 hours"
"24 hours to reset a password?"
"yes"
"ok thank you"

call 3, wednesday 12th:

"my internet is down, and i called yesterday, and..."
"ok what's the brand of your modem"
"siemens blah blah blah"
"are the lights on?"
"yes"
"ok connect your laptop directly to the fiber optic modem"
"ok"
"now enter your username and password"
"entered, still fails"
"ah"
"as i've told your colleague yesterday, the dhcp isn't working"
"ok then we'll need to send a tech, please take the complaint number, someone will contact you"

silence all through thursday, so i call on friday - what an idiot expecting them to work over the weekend.

call 4, friday 14th:

"sir no one has called"
"sir the complaint needs 2 business days, and since you logged the complaint on wed, then you had thursday and friday is off, so you may expect a call on saturday, but they work half-day, so maybe sunday"
"ok thanks"

call 5, sunday 16th:

"i have a problem with my internet and you've promised to send a tech and no one's here"
"sir what kind of modem do you have?"
"no, no i don't want you to fix it, i just want to know where the tech is"
"account number"
"blah blah blah"
"ah sir, someone will call you"
"i have called a week ago and still no one is here"
"sir they need 2 working days to get there; you called on wednesday and friday and saturday were off, so today is the second business day"
"but i called on friday and you told me that sat is a working day"
"no sat is off"
"ok when can i expect the call"
"within 2 days"
"yes, today is the second day, what time"
"i don't know sir i don't have their schedule"
"ok how about you give me their number, i'll call them"
"sir they don't have a direct number"
"ok... how do you get in touch with them?"
"we file the complaint and they get it" (in other words, magic)
"ok, so can you please put a note that i asked for a follow-up?"
"ok, done"

call 6, sunday 16th:
"i have a problem with my internet and no one has called"
"sir account number"
"blah blah"
and i swear he asked me this again "sir what brand of modem do you have?"
"no no i don't want you to fix anything, i just want to know when you'll send the the tech"
"well, sir, what lights do you have on the modem"
*facepalm*
"i tried it all, i used a wire, i connected directly to the modem, i tried all the diagnostics 15 times and it's still not working, i just want to know where the tech is"
"ok sir, please take this tracking number"

call 7, monday 17th"
"no one has come"
"i see here that you've filed to complaint on wed"
"yes, that's what i said, now where is the guy?"
"sir i've made a rush comment, here is the tracking number"

and here i am writing this blog from work. needless to say, it's still not resolved but i do have 3 tracking numbers and i know the exact key combination on their ivr to get directly to a live agent. ha! take that etisalat!

how did that idiot get up there?

i find myself asking that question more often these days. you would meet someone in a respectable position in a company, and the first thing you think of is this: how the fuck did you end up here? obviously, you have no brain. it is quite apparent that your iq rivals that of a dyslexic pigeon. yet, despite all challenge you have climbed the corporate ladder.

i find there are three prerequisites for said idiots:

1. higher education at a good school: yes, nothing says smart like a good degree
2. charm: how to make nonsense sound a little less ridiculous by looking good
3. no sense of self-worth: only approval form other people is what really matters

they follow a simple schema:

1. keep moving: if you stay in one place long enough, someone will notice that the stapler has more common sense than you
2. keep moving again - move up by moving sideways: face it: since the database backup server contributes more to the company than you, the only way to move up it is to move companies. never stay in one place more than 2 to 3 years
3. learn and like what an ass tastes like (i mean that in the bootlick sense, not the literal sense)

the result is what you see in everyday life: idiots in high positions.

more american idiots

yes, it's that time of again. americans make it easy for me to pick on them, really.

cnn has a weird feature where people send in answers to a provocative question (not sure if it's text or twitter or some other "in" shit). so cnn asked the question "are you willing to sacrifice some of your rights to help the effort against terrorism?" and i caught two of the responses. needless to say, these were americans at their best:

"if necessary, but constitutional rights are inalienable!" way to go learning a big word like inalienable. so dimwit, what rights are you willing to sacrifice? ones scribbled by 3 year-olds? your rights are constitutional by definition.

"of course, because if we don't the terrorists will win." who are those mysterious people known as the terrorists? win what exactly? does the average american really believe that there is a species out there out to get them? news flash: there are no "terrorists", they don't want to "win" anything. the only ones in a war are your representatives in government, waging a fight against a vague image of an imaginary enemy. another news flash: you'll never win because there's nothing to win.

right-click

set as desktop background. that's how you change the wallpaper on your windows desktop. no one has any excuse to retain the piss-ugly green field xp desktop. in fact, there are some tools that will randomly set wallpaper from your pictures folder.

note: do NOT set a picture of your kids on your desktop. no one gives a fuck.

what you'll never see on tv

csi: after the corpse is fished out of the river, the chemicals found in its hair are not unique. in fact, just common salt and pollution found all over town. case closed.

sci fi series: the flagship just patrols the space. a strange artifact in encountered and turns out it's just a rock. alarms aren't sounded.

sci-fi alternative: the flagship runs into a superior alien ship, to be destroyed in a cloud of shrapnel and vapor.

medical drama: as the patient is rushed into the emergency room, the doctors converge on her, yelling medical statistics and diagnosis. 3 minutes later, she passes away.

young rich people show (90210, one tree hill, the oc): the guy falls in love with the girl and marries her without complications.

blog entry title

yes, this entry's title is redundant. other examples:

cnn: some african leader wants to ban illegal demonstrations. doesn't illegal mean banned?
almost all marketing idiots: buy an extra large and get a gift, absolutely free! if the gift weren't free, wouldn't it stop being a gift? (talked about this one before, but it just keeps coming back)
cnn (again): that area is heading for some wet rainy weather. thank god it's not dry rainy weather.

imagine something with me

imagine something with me.

imagine an alien spaceship orbiting earth observing our habits. i ask you this: what would they make of celebrities? i was wondering that looking at a noisy singer with lots of female fans waving posters of him in the audience. most would kill to spend a night with him. what struck me as odd was that he's not handsome, they don't know if he's charming or nice or an asshole. all they know about him is that he sells lots of songs. add to that phenomena like paris hilton, perez hilton and other airheads who are famous for being famous and you'll get what i mean.

imagine something else if you will.

imagine humans twenty thousand years from now stumbling upon a massive, ancient structure that can seat 50,000 humans, all facing a great big rectangular area. analysis of the area reveals that grass was grown there. at each end the remains of poles were found there. what purpose did such a structure serve? was it some sort of temple? could they imagine millions of people intensely watching 22 grown men run after an inflated leather bundle?

hi5 suggestions

i am somehow signed up for a service called hi5. i think it was a pre-facebook sort of thing. anyway i've never used it, but it keeps on sending me useful friend suggestions. see the screen shot below. one may notice the bunch of children on the left.



however, i would like to draw your attention to H. yup, the gentleman wielding the large machine gun, in the foreground of what can only be somalia. how hi5 thought i would be interested in a "freedom fighter" is beyond me. see sometimes technology just breaks.

prettiest girl in pakistan

two of them actually, sat next to each other, smiling their best smiles, over a pizza. they absolutely beamed with joy. alas, they weren't real (as in not physically present), they were girls in a pizza hut billboard. so eating at pizza hut will bring me pretty girls? has the marketing team even seen karachi? for those you haven't had that pleasure, it's a step away from being a single large a dump. most of the population is impoverished and there is garbage on the sides of most roads. for some reason birds closely resembling the carrion variety fly around the city everywhere you look. and one very important fact: there are no girls dressed like those in the ad or as pretty.

of course, pizza hut isn't the only company guilty of false advertising. other examples:

1. wii ads, with people old and young excitedly huddled around the tv, ecstatic with joy playing some shit ass game. the reality is that the wii is sitting in its original box, with the box gathering dust somewhere. the bigger reality is that everyone hates their immediate family.

2. panasonic and their flat tv. three 20-somethings laughingly carry it and hang it on a wall opposite a couch in what can only be described as a hallway. apparently it was a tiny apartment. the kids immediately throw themselves on the couch and start enjoying their purchase. panasonic were emphasizing the slimness of the tv. what they also emphasized was the abject poverty of the owners, to live in a matchbox, yet somehow afford a flat screen tv.

3. airline ads showing people happily sleeping in their business and first class cabins, with stewardesses ascending on them like angels, carrying fresh food, taking their books and covering them while they sleep. the reality of course is that most of these stewardesses are not models who couldn't find other jobs, nor do they care if you are covered while sleeping. however, what the ads truly fail to capture is coach, where passengers are crammed in like sardines, the food is horrible (rubbery omelets, crunchy bread, limp salads anyone?), and there is a single stewardess for each 50 passengers.

the american legal system

i jab at americans quite often here. they've earned it.

the most recent jab comes from the news. a poor (not literally, but poor in the victim sense) lady was fined $80,000 dollars for each song she downloaded illegally off the internet. for 24 songs, she's being fined $1.9 million dollars. to put things in perspective, a legal download is 99 cents a pop. for $1.9 million dollars you can buy around 2 million songs. also, you can buy several exotic cars, a few houses, or live comfortably on the interest for a few years. but that's not my point. my point is this:

in an unrelated piece of tragic news, you must have heard of the crash of air france's flight 447, of which there were no survivors (even the wreckage hasn't been found). air france has been accused of not being sympathetic with the relatives of the families and decided to pay an initial $24,000 to each family. that's 30% of the value of a single song. in other words, a 32-year-old in minnesota has 3 times more incentive not to download songs than air france has to protect its passengers from death. even the warsaw convention, which governs the personal injury limit to airlines, sets that limit to around $27,000.

$80,000 per song. way to go.

americans and denny's

Obama Drastically Scales Back Goals For America After Visiting Denny's

weight gain in a day

why do all hotel rooms have scales, yet they don't have, say, an iron ? what are the odds that i would want to weight myself after staying in a hotel for one or two days? who is that health conscious?

word of the day

spherical idiots: those who appear to be idiots every way you look at them

shaving using seventeen blades doesn't make you irresistable

neither does using a new deodorant, or using an anti-dandruff shampoo, or buying a new shirt. those girls you see on tv are paid to (a) stay thin and (b) pretend to be attracted to clean-shaven guys. incidentally, it doesn't make you more handsome or make your six-pack more prominent (or at all visible).

over 23

a restaurant was proudly displaying that they have over 23 branches around the country. what does that mean? do they have 24 branches? or 26? i mean how hard is it to actually count the branches, since there's over 23 of them! if they had, say, 11,000 branches, it might be irrelevant to say they have 11,467 branches, so over 11,000 might be called for. but over 23? jeese!

ps: this also applies to about 24 locations. about? so is it actually 23? or 25?

silly gmail

whenever i check my spam folder, it helpfully displays links to food recipes that use spam: spam omelet, spam burrito, etc.

h1n1 update

interesting phenomenon: going into thailand the immigration employees were nice and polite (as everyone else in the country). on the way out they were also nice and polite, but they wore those surgical masks. on the way out. is that supposed to tell us anything?

basic grammar

most english words can be changed from singular to plural by adding an s. for example:
house : houses
idiot : idiots

however, to the latter group, not all words can be pluralized, such as:
equipment : equipment

more importantly, to the latter group, not all words ending in an s (or s sound) are plural. for example:
license is a license, not the plural of licen
sacrifice is not many, nor is it the plural of sacrifi

please stop asking me to deliver a licen. it's a license. and i won't give a sacrifi.

greatest invention

some argue it's fire (and would argue that fire is a discovery). some argue it's the wheel. the pen, the printing press, the internet - there is a long list of possible candidates. but clearly this list has been compiled by healthy people. one with a cold and a stuffy nose will tell you that this is the greatest invention:


nasal spray clears clogged up noses. with it you can breathe, speak, think, and sleep peacefully. never mind the pen - i'll take the spray over it any time.

pity friend

"behold the pity friend! yes, that one over there, the fat one. no, she doesn't do herself any favors. and yes, those pants aren't helping. watch how these hips sway, how the jeans are busting at the seams - she doesn't get the "skinny" in skinny jeans. the group of skinny "friends" around her? well, my dear friend, this is where pity friend gets her name from! see that one over there, yes one of the skinny ones, she's the whale's best friend! yes! been friends since they were toddlers (but you can guess who always stole all the cookies, no?). yeah, that group is the skinny one's clique, the hippo is tagging along, feeling out of place and fatter by the minute. what she does? she goes home and finds comfort in a tub of ice cream, a one kilo bar of chocolate or a bucket of fried chicken."

important police business

so i was at the gym this morning, waiting for the nice receptionist to give me the password for the wireless. it was quite early and i had barely gotten there when a guy still in his shirt and pants, with his bag on his back, purposefully walks to the reception: "where is the manager? (while annoyingly clicking his membership card against the counter) get me the manager now or i call the police. come on, where is she? i need her now, or i'll call the police (still clicking the fucking card)" so the poor receptionist started frantically dialing numbers "she's coming sir, she's on the way." of course i was wondering what might it be this early that requires the police. did they charge him twice for his membership? did someone attack him? did he find a body in the locker room? ten seconds later "yes get her now, or i'll call the police, someone stole my sneakers."

someone "stole" his fucking nike sneakers.

imagine the look on the policeman's face when he gets there and he's told he's there for a pair of missing sneakers. i mean you didn't see the self-righteousness on this guy's face. sneakers. in the gym. he probably forgot his fucking shoes at home, the idiot.

the fucking police.

funky arabs

i apologize for the video.

i don't apologize often for stuff i post here, but this video made me want to gouge my eyes out. it led to rage. i couldn't even watch it to the end. regardless of the chain of idiocy required to actually get something like this on tv (fag: hey i want to express an opinion -> producer: damn right, oh great creative overlord -> director: of course you need em hoes, it's the only way to express your opinion -> tv station: this will not offend, it certainly has 'nuff hoes), some people might miss the point of the video: arabs are not terrorists!

fag funky arab

i mean what better indication of a nation's progress than scantly clad girls writhing with guys, whom mr shweiry refers to "guys on their high" or something like that. i love how in the very beginning he categorically removes any and all doubt to the nationality of the participants in this great video. yes, we're not bom-bers, but we're sexy. in fact, after this video, all your base are belong to us.

i believe i speak on behalf of us all when i say: fuck you.

westernization

i was in thailand recently. in my head it's a south-east asian country, but in its reality it has the typical western influences. you have the modern high-rise buildings, the malls, starbucks and mcd's (duh), and everything you can expect in a modern country. i guess we should call them modern influences, rather than western, if eastern countries have them just as much. the thai do retain their culture (they're the kindest, most accommodating people you'll ever meet), but have borrowed some elements from the west.

my favorite borrowed element, which happens to be more or less their current national dress, is the short shorts.

thailand's national dress

i don't know if it's the law or the weather or the fact that thai girls are endowed with some of the best legs on earth, but it seems every other girls had them on. i mean i think normal girls must get depressed when they get to thailand. seriously i haven't seen a back-view of a girl that wasn't pleasant, and most were spectacular. so god bless the media, culture and hollywood for its establishment of short shorts as a fashion trend.

distant food

i recently noticed a weird phenomenon. at fast food joints (and other places that put pictures of their food in their menus), the object you're buying is usually in sharp focus where the rest of the items (for example, the fries and coke) are out of focus. so what is that? are all the items really large and far, far away, so far that they lose focus? i've noticed it in the burger king menu and the friday's menu, but i bet it's elsewhere.

notice how the mashed potatoes, even on the same plate, are out of focus. how large is the plate?

entertainment

people like going to the movies. people like clubbing, singing and dancing. some even enjoy a book, or poetry, or a walk in a park.

but the foremost human source of entertainment is their mouths. good god in heaven, people just can't shut their traps. wherever i went in thailand and was left for a few minutes with anyone - any godforsaken stranger - they would start talking to me. one would think having the language challenge might reduce its appeal, but no, it instead makes the experience even more painful to me. they would gesture widely and describe words they want to use (how you say not cold? yes, it was hot that day). as you can imagine, the content of the conversation would be limited to the weather, where i'm from and what drink i'd like to have.

does anyone know why people like to talk? on the plane, in queues, wherever they're forced to be quiet, they start talking.

swine flu breaking news

and on the ongoing world panic at the swine flu issue, mexico has officially announced that the number of confirmed dead due to the flu has dropped from 20 to 7.

medicine in mexico must be quite advanced, what with their ability to resurrect the dead.

three types of idiots

there are at least three types of idiots in fitness first:
1. penis proud: in the locker area in fitness first there are at least 125 signs that kindly, politely, imploringly ask people to not walk around naked in the gym. some are large, some are small, some are in the changing area, some near the showers, some in the showers. what's amazing is not their sheer quantity, but rather how little effect they have on people. idiot type 1 still insists on walking around naked and changing in view of everyone. i believe i speak on behalf of everyone when i say: we see enough disgusting scenes in the gym, what with overweight women insisting on wearing tights, so please put your fucking penis away.
2. hanger hoarder: if one visits ikea, one would notice that a pack of 10 plastic hangers costs 10 dirhams, averaging a dirham a pop. fitness first are kind enough to provide these in the lockers, idiot type 2 insists, however, on taking the hanger home with him. it's theft you fucking asshole, they're not there to take, they're there to use.
3. bottle brimmer: fitness first provides several cool water fountains (cool as in cold, not hip), which are designed, i believe, for people to drink water from. you know, like when we're in a class and we have a 30 second break to drink and i want to drink and get back to class. some idiot type 3 faggots (not homosexuals, i'm just running out of words to insult the gym idiot), however, decide that it's cool to fill their fucking water bottles from the fountains. i don't want to stand in fucking line so you can fill your bottle. a bottle is 5 dirhams asshole, fucking buy one.

update: there is a fourth, somehow missed, type of idiot: the weight waiter: in body pump people need to gather several small weights to add and remove from the bar during the workout. see? several small weights, you keep them close and add and remove them depending on the workout. some, who must have some sort of mental retardation, insist on loading the bars at the weight rack. so they would stand there like the little princesses they are, keeping everyone behind them waiting, while they take the small weights and add them, one by one, to the bar. then when the workout is done, they return to the rack, and start removing them from the bar, one by one, while people are waiting behind them.
apologies for leaving the fourth and most idiotic idiot out - a serious infraction on my part. apologies.

what it really means

what he says:

i don't know i'm just having one of those days when technology is just bad to you

what he wants you to feel:

he is a good person whose fate forces him to face some hardships every once in a while

the truth:

he's too dumb to work his fucking ipod

what she says:

i've been having nothing but salads for lunch for 2 weeks now and i still can't lose any weight - i must have slow metabolism

what she wants you to feel:

pity her and not judge her form

the truth:

she's a fat bitch who can't lay off the fried chicken and the cookies

who dat?

i once wondered why anyone would use a foreign celebrity to promote products for the arab world (they did that with nicole scherzinger again, but damn she can promote bottled air and i'll buy it), but i noticed an even more disturbing phenomenon.

i was walking past a poster with a big picture of anne hathaway promoting a perfume or something, and she had a nice gown on (she cute, no?). i was smiling to myself enjoying the display, then i noticed her name at the bottom of the poster.

why?

why would a company promote a product by using a well-known face if it's not well known? yes, some idiot doesn't understand contradictions and decided to tell everyone "look! we're using a celebrity you don't know! buy our perfume! now!"

real athletes

the word athletics usually brings to mind images of physical activity: intense competition, players running, jumping, sweating, competing, with large audiences and cheering and excitement. athletes are physically active, in good shape and inspire fierce loyalties.

what they aren't are golfers, dart or dart players.

those two sport wannabes should not be sports. unless a "sport" causes you to sweat, it shouldn't be a sport. i mean dart players are notoriously fat (maybe because of the snacks they have between the turns throwing darts). but even those "sports" have some motion. what shocked me today was that chess was in the sports section of the newspaper.

chess.

chess was in the sports section in the newspaper.

chess.

can someone please explain to me why chess was in the sports section? is it the suspense? is it the ceaseless action?

chess. a sport.

witty tshirts

i love the onion. i think their satire is the best available anywhere and i would give my pinkie toe for a chance to work with them. i don't know if i have the wit, but they are the funniest, smartest people out there (barring 4chan, of course, but those people are hard to swallow to all but the most hardened cyber residents).

a considerate friend got me a "the onion" mug. on one side it reads "the onion", and on the other (the one that people can see when a right-handed person is using it) it reads "i wish i were dead". i was foolish enough to bring the mug into the office and weirdly enough people actually use it. i mean i thought the office was generally suicidal, but it turns out the problem is much simpler than that: people themselves are simple, they don't read what the mug says.

of course this problem is but a symptom of a bigger issue, which is people reading what's on anything they use. this includes mugs apparently, but also tshirts, notebooks, anything someone idiotic enough can write useless nonsense on. useless slogans, meaningless information, self-advertisement and downright babble are all plastered on anything that'll hold ink.

i guess i just want to say this: read. before making yourself a bigger fool than you already are, read what you wear and use, it might save you one day.

medium rare

i don't get vegetarians. i mean, to consciously stop consuming meat (with meat i mean beef, lamb and chicken) is a little beyond my imagination. however, i won't judge. live and let live, i always say.

but those fucking assholes who have "veggie burgers" or "veggie bacon" or whatever fuck meat wannabe veggie shit they wanna consume should die slowly. there's fake bacon! fake bacon for god's sake! bacon is yummy because it's fatty and crispy and clots your arteries. typical of weaklings: don't quit the stuff you like to eat for whatever reason (ethical, religious, etc), but instead, find a marginally less controversial version an enjoy that instead.

you think eating meat is wrong. fine. don't pretend you're eating meat, STOP eating meat. get your protein from beans and cheese. have eggs (unless you don't feel right about eating unhatched chicken fetuses). but don't fry facon and enjoy it in a blt, it's defeating the purpose - you don't eat meat, fucking stick to it.

for me it's simple: i love animals, but mainly dead, on a plate and grilled medium rare.

tit tat

i wonder what messages women try to send men. i wonder if they know. i wonder if they don't all need massive group therapy.

i work in a company with colleagues from around 10 different countries. one of my colleagues is a cute little indian who at 30 something has braces (i hope i got the age right or she'll have my nuts for this). she's bubbly and loud and her laugh can be heard a mile away. she also has a tattoo right above her ass (or as the females would like to point out, at the bottom of her back). one day in the conference room she was reaching for a phone across the conference table, and on account of her being little, she really had to reach, exposing said tattoo. that was the first time i notice it, so it caught my eye. a split second later she's yelling at me accusing my of staring at her ass. i was "uuhhhh".

this morning i stepped into the elevator with a group of people. one lady had a tank top on, and there was a tit tat, staring me in the face. of course having learned from my lesson with my friendly colleague i quickly averted my eyes, but was inspired to write this. i mean i will accept the argument that tank tops are worn because of the heat, but inscribing a tattoo over your breast is only asking for attention. no? any female insight here would be appreciated. it's like a guy getting into a ferrari then acting all offended when people ogle it.

do not read these books

i like reading. i like to vary my reading and take chances on books (so i randomly pick out books at book stores). i have favorite genres, but generally speaking, i like em all.

what i despise is overhyped fucking classics. i understand that people praise highly subjective crap like art and call it genius (picasso? really? must i get high to appreciate his art?), but when it comes to books it really pisses me off. i present to you 3 classics that are best left to rot in a library somewhere.

1. george orwell's animal farm and 1984
the concept behind these novels is quite interesting. they deal mainly with censorship. however, animal farm is literally about a farm with speaking animals. and is like 80 pages or something. and 1984 takes the animal farm concept and applies it to humans, almost idea for idea. i did myself the injustice of reading them back to back, but i would also say i did myself a favor by catching his bs. either one of them written alone would've been enough. don't do the animal one, the human one analyses the ideas in much more depth

2. james joyce' a portrait of the artist as a young man
never in my life have i read such a narcissistic account of one's childhood as that pile of nonsense. i was brought up catholic but now i don't believe in god. boohoo. to be fair i didn't actually go through the whole thing, but damn it i tried to read the fucker 4 times and i couldn't past the first few chapters. it's boring as hell.

3. gabriel garcía márquez' 100 years of solitude
i had to google the novel to get the guy's name. that novel was an absolute agony to complete. it is so irrelevant that i'm surprised that people actually complete and enjoy it. it talks about a town with a train and bananas and something about an eating contest. i have no idea what the hell it was all about. i finished it and wondered why i ever bothered in the first place. but the eating contest part i'm sure of.

a punch in the face

some people are just asking for it. guys who perpetually use bluetooth headsets. people ever-droning about their iphones. smokers.

but one category deserves it more than most. fucking guys who think they'll all that when they drive around in fucking minis. seriously? a mini? i mean guys in big trucks might be compensating for small willies, but a mini? what is it? are you a fucking artist or something? trendsetter? it's like guys who use macs. i bet that same guy will work a pink polo shirt and sporting those fucking glasses.

fucking glasses

btw, they're the same people who would drive the fucking beetle. seriously, someone please explain to me why these cars are bought.

update: also guys who wear skinny jeans and a dirty look also deserve punches. just saying.