war on trash bins

i was in the uk, getting ready to board a train, got a coffee and waited for the train. finished my coffee, turned around to look for a trash bin.

and looked.

and looked.

to no avail. there are no trash bins in any of the train stations. i noticed other people also stand there holding their trash. i asked about that and it seems it's part of the uk's war on terror.

after the 9/11 attacks on the us, narrow-minded americans have enforced all sorts of weird laws on the rest of the world. i mean other than the ridiculous security checks for flights, there are the restrictions on taking liquids more than 100ml, and putting them in clear bags (i don't get it, am i supposed to start mixing a bomb on the plane?). the uk has had its share of attacks, but their efforts on the war on terror has focused on trash bins instead.

they removed all the trash bins to discourage would-be terrorists from leaving bombs there. i mean, really? i mean, if i wanted to bomb a station, and i took my bomb to drop in a trash bin, and didn't find one, would i curse my luck, pack my shit and leave? how effective is that? would it help if the bins were perhaps a little less terrorist-friendly? small openings, transparent bags, you know, something where you can't stick a bomb?

i don't know. maybe they can wait and use the bins in the trains.

artsy fartsy

stocks usually represent a value in a company. so for example, if i start a company with a million dollars in capital and sell a hundred thousand stocks of that capital, i know each share is worth 10 dollars. so far so good? cool.

now stocks in the stock market are treated like normal commodities, so one can trade stocks like cattle or grain. people used to buy stocks because they had attractive dividends (that is, stock's share of the company's profits). however, because now they are traded, people buy stocks because they expect someone to buy the stocks from them for a higher price (because of promise of higher dividends, or someone else paying even more for a stock). so if i buy stock for 10 dollars a share, i expect to sell it for 11 to make a "quick" profit. still with me? good.

now problems arise when people start paying a lot of money for worthless stock (.com bust anyone?). that is, when everyone decides that this stock is worth something, just because everyone else thinks it's worth something, usually with no basis for the value. lemmings? yes. risky? very. preposterous? not at all.

see, i've never experienced as much bullshit as much as people in art galleries or people paying ridiculous amounts of money for art. i've tried to maintain an open mind, i tried to "appreciate art", but i just couldn't. especially the abstract stuff that sells for silly money. i mean seriously, what makes this particular piece of art so special? what makes it unique? to me they all seemed like the same scribblings, especially contemporary, abstract, bla, bla, art. but i was in a gallery one day (trying my best to understand why stick figures with enlarged heads was considered art), and it hit me. this is the fucking stock market, but for something even more volatile than value in an online company - it's the stock market for taste. the only reason art was considered "expressive", "tasteful" or "valuable", was because "experts" claimed this was art. people eventually decided this was art, just because everyone else thinks it is art. lemmings?

dirty escalators

i love my country.

ok it's like how you love your parents, you probably wouldn't love them if you've met them as strangers but you've known them your entire life and they have fed you you clothed you and wiped your ass when you crapped yourself.

so i love my country.

that said, i find faults in my parents.

and i find them in my country. alas they are numerous. further alas, they near cause me ulcers sometimes. the latest is the project to expand the existing airport or build a new one or some meaningless shit about wasting a ton of money on a totally useless venture. it's not like the airport is overflowing with passengers (although looking at the chaos of handling the whole of FOUR concurrent flights you would think ten thousand people were trying to pass through the security points). but no, some idiot decided that a new airport is needed (probably for some reason such as prettying the country or making it more attractive for investments or something - hell even the road to the existing airport is one of the nicest in the country).

of course building the new airport is like giving a spoiled kid a brand new toy. it's a matter of time before he breaks it or grows bored with it. in the case of my dear beloved country it'll be the earlier causing the latter. not that the country will get bored with the airport per se, buy it will be shiny for a year or two before it starts to fall into disrepair. it'll start with subtle signs here and there: a cracked tile here, a broken sign there, a faulty light in a corner, and all of a sudden the new airport is a shabby shell of its former self. which brings me to my point:

don't build a new airport. in fact, stop building new things at all. you're the government - the problem with our country is not the lack of buildings, but it's that everything governmental just falls into fucking disrepair. i remember expansions in my university campus. what i also remember was a ton of empty rooms that weren't used because they were a fucking mess. the same goes to new roads and bridges, new development initiatives, new whatever - the government has a hard time keeping things up.

so the problem is not that the airport can't handle enough people, it's that it has dirty escalators (see picture above).

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http://www.acm.uiuc.edu/siggraph/eoh_projects/eoh2002.html

ramadan

habby ramadan boys and girls

customs

not the money governments take off imports - i'm talking about what people agree with each other as being "right". had i not known about the prohibition, i would say it's a typically arab response to anything different than what we're used to be dealing with it: throw our hands up and start screaming that this is "mukhalif lil3adat wataqaleed" (which literally, if poorly, translates into "against habits and customs"). i saw this statement used in response to everything from fashion trends to slutty satellite channels to social interactions.

i agree with my loathing of some of these abhorrent phenomena, because i find them idiotic in themselves. another thing i find idiotic in and of itself is the concept of customs. behold the following questions:

who defines what a custom is?
who defines what is good and bad in said customs?
is there some sort of punishement to custom sinners?
if there is, who has the right to carry it out?
if these customs are so great, why do they change over time?
in fact, why are these customs considered as great in the first place?
can i create a custom custom?

customs are a form of crowd democracy, where things are considered as right and wrong in a most subjective manner that somehow produces a "reaction" (which the democracy uses to enforce its decisions). an example of that is things like social scorn, parental wrath, public outcry and other useless and seemingly senseless reactions. girl holds guy's hand: harlot. dude dressed in baggy jeans: fag. however, if you ask the same judges: what about your sister? oh that guy? they've been dating for 3 years and they're getting engaged next summer. what about your neighbor? who him? no no no he's just a kid he'll grow out of it. what is common to all these reactions is this: they seem to measure the "public" reaction, in other words, almost everyone would instinctively and immediately agree on whether something specific is right or wrong without getting all the details.

with me so far? good, here comes the crux.

enter nour. nour is a turkish soap opera that was dubbed into arabic recently. it was (is) one of the most popular tv shows in the arab world. nour is a cute chick who's the star, plus muhannad is her estranged lover/husband/boyfriend or some shit or they’re still kicking it or were or... i mean i don’t know but the names are important. nour took the tv channels by storm. the actors became instant stars, the shoot location is a touristic attraction, you get all sorts of nour merch in the market. fucking baby names nour and muhannad are the most popular now. saudi muftis decried it as an evil sin and influence and the work of the devil. there’s a special pay-per-view channel that will play you the episodes a day before the public one will. another by-product of its fame is experts who start voicing opinions about it.

one discussion i heard was why it is so popular. something about it depicting nice turkish scenery, attractive people with complex love lives, intimate relationships not available in arab families and a host of other things. what do you think the common sentence after every opinion is? yup, “nour is popular, but the reasons of its popularity are against our customs”. really? nour is not watched by young rebellious teenagers, it’s watched by the common people. by families, by the average joe, by the very person whose lifestyle defines customs.

which brings me to my point: it seems that the lifestyle alternative to our customs is more attractive than the reality. in other words, these things we decry as against our customs are what make the show so attractive; this escape from our reality to theirs is what makes the show so attractive.

so going back to my question, who defines what a custom is?

arabic speaking hayden panettiere

in addition to andy mcdowell, jeniffer love hewitt, kristin kreuk, and many other american celebrities who somehow promote skin care products in arabic. i'm talking about arabic dubbed originally english speaking commercials.

did it ever occur to those who post the ads that the target audience who doesn't understand english and thus requires translation doesn't give a rat's ass about obscure american celebrities? that it, in fact, doesn't even know who they are? why not invest some money and get arabic speaking celebrities promote these products.

coffee... filters?

seriously.

i am still struggling with words to describe this. idiotic, ludicrous, unbelievable, stupid are just a few to come to mind, but i'll leave it to you - my one reader - to judge for yourself.

a company that manufactures coffee filters prides itself that their filters are organic or bleach free or some shit only americans care about. anyway, the filters are brown and their texture is, well, filtery, for lack of a better word.

what really caught my attention was the instructions written on the back. they suggest additional uses for the coffee filters. what may they be, pray tell? filter dirty water? help with chemistry experiments? make drugs? no. the suggested uses are:

1. serve chips and popcorn in them. this one actually makes sense.
2. use for 100s of crafts projects. i swear to you - if your kids want to cut out a few figures give them brown coffee filters
3. use for wrapping sandwiches before wrapping them in plastic. i mean, wtf. wtf. it's in a fucking plastic bag, why the fuck would i want to wrap it in a coffee filter!
4. the filters are lint-free, so use them to clean glass and shit. of my god! i mean seriously, oh my god! i can't continue this.

big girls don't cry

but the internet is full of idiots who will leave comments - apparently these are all about fergie's video

the americans have bush, we've got this guy (more accurately, we have guys)

then we wonder why we're viewed as flaming idiots.

http://www.thesun.co.uk/sol/homepage/news/article1493291.ece

and just so you know what's going on, some qatari idiot shipped his lambo all the way to the uk to get its oil changed - and then shipped it back.