a solar eclipse in the 21st century

one would think that a phenomenon like that is thoroughly understood, and it really is just simple geometry (the moon happens to pass between earth and the sun). but by all that i hold dear idiocy knows no bounds! some dimwit in the gym was watching tv broadcasting seriously tragic pictures of the suffering in haiti. 200,000 dead. so what does he say? it's days between it and the solar eclipse.

what

the

fuck

fucking thousands of years of technology gone down the drain. this is just so infuriating! then he starts to quote how the muslim prophet was afraid when he saw the eclipse so he started praying a 5 hour continuous prayer (apparently he was having coffee with him that afternoon or something), so yeah, since the moon passed between us and the sun disaster will strike. no seriously what the fuck! what the fucking fuck! ok i give up.

empty jobs

i was watching tv the other night and a showtime ad caught my eye. it was about a "sports studio" that analyzed a soccer (football?) game. the studio had five (apparently) sane adults, in fancy suits, discussing how the game proceeded, how the coaches reacted to game changes and other senseless interactions.

imagine, if you will, what someone who's never heard of sports before, will think about a soccer game. 22 adults running after an air-filled leather pouch? now imagine further, if possible, that same person heard of a group of other adults dedicated their lives to watching the games to provide expert advice. what would he think? wtf. seriously, wtf? i mean do these men (yes, predominantly men) have no self-respect?

of course, although these are unfortunate souls, they can probably find comradeship in the following:

1. political and financial analysts: they similarly don fancy suits, sit in studios and are quite opinionated. but in contrast to the sport analysts' discussion of useless facts, they discuss don't facts at all. they speculate, they're belligerent, they argue with passion and logic, but are usually just farting in the wind. political analysts are almost always full of it, but every once in a while a financial analyst will get lucky and become jesus for a while. then when he falls, the anti-christ.
2. historians: those don't like to don suits but discuss shit that's already happened. they marvel at how fabulous people who died 10,000 years ago were. they breathlessly discuss how prehistoric civilizations monitored the stars and preserved people because they thought they'd eventually wake up. historians discuss the strategies used in wars long forgotten, except by them. i mean political analysts are full of it but they usually discuss people who are alive.
3. astrologists: they predict people's fortunes based on where a tiny spec of a planet orbiting a below-average star - one of billions - orbiting the center of the galaxy - which is also one of billions - happens to be on a particular month. the fascinating fact is that there are people who listen to them.

update: i'm a fucking genius. check out these bs jobs. also, the onion agrees with me.

kuwaitis and iraqis unite

ten years after iraq invaded kuwait for a month or so, the countries have finally reached an agreement about a certain topic: it is a completely vile idea to call a street after the deceased leader saddam. they were both outraged!

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.