New Middle East ? Noway !

So we've been hearing/seeing on TV, radio channels and even on podcasts, about the new middle east ! No matter where you turn your attention to, it's always Condaleeza (GOD, how I hate seeing her ugly dog face) Rice advocating how lovely it will be to have a divided middle east! WOW get a life Leeza ! we are not thick hill billies ! :-x

The solution for all what is ugly (American Admin.'s point of view) in this region is to have (The New Middle East), the improved version of (The Big Middle East) - remember that? Funny how we don't get to hear about it anymore – YEAH RIGHT ! The New Middle East plan will provide peace, harmony and ofcourse democracy ! Based on WHAT ? How did they reach this conclusion ? I mean if the whole idea of reforming the region is great, why do they keep changing it ? IT WILL NEVER WORK ! :-x

Especially this one:

What strikes me the most in this stupid map, is how the American Administration decided on this being a fair solution, although they keep claiming that they are against the division and crippling of Iraq ! Suddenly there is a Kurdistan in the north, an Arabstan in the south (although historically and geography this is the wrong location for the Arabstan state to be) and finally what is left is going to be Iraq ! Another funny thing is how the US Administration gave good rewards to all its new allies (Kurds and Balochies) plus the new Azerbaijan, who was never a part of the middle east got a hefty reward just for being the new Saudi Arabia and thus desirving to be a part of the new Middle East ! :-x

This only leaves me with a better and easier solution to the US Admin: (Let us be and we will be fine, control Israel and peace will be resurrected in the region.)

Immigration or working abroad, WHY

I am sick and tired of people manipulating immigration or working abroad ! :-x How did we come to this ? where did the Bahrainis get the idea that our country lacks opportunity ? I agree that we are not as blessed with infinite reserves of oil as our fellow Gulf Countries, but the situation here is not as bad as some might portrait, we are not a poor third world country. In case you all forgot, we are a rich country ! :-x

What strikes my the most is that those who moan are not the people you'd expect. Oh no, it's not the poor, it's not the people who are dealt with the wrong hand of fate ! Those moaners are in fact from well off families (upper middle class) and mainly holders of degrees from abroad ! In other words these are the people who actually benefit of the lion's share of opportunities.

People need to remember that "The grass is not always greener on the other side of the fence" and also that "the glass is always half FULL". Positive thinking is what my generation lack, why do we keep concentrating on the negatives and overlook the positives? Why compare instead of improve ? WAKE UP ! It's our duty to do so, not only the government's ! ! I would challenge anybody to point me at the direction of a perfect country ! The perfect country is merely a myth created by utopians, it simply doesn't exist in this world. And like the old Bahraini saying goes "Why take the risks of the seas while you can live on the goods of the land"

A Thank you note

I'd like to thank all those who showered me with words of praise and encouragement regarding my promotions (On & off the blog). Thank you all, it means a lot to me ! :)

A pleasant surprise

Today came with a very pleasant surprise, :) I was called by the Head of the vocational training department yesterday for an important meeting at 1 PM today. :O Anyway arriving at his office, I was somewhat feeling anxious to find out the reasons for his request of me meeting him (I assumed he'd offer me a chance to go for a Masters degree in the UK to extend my contract with them). The meeting went smoothly and after the formalities The Head actually offered me a new position (Head of The Welding, Fabrication and Metalllurgy Department) a very big career move in such a short period. This came as a surprise to me and a great reward for all the hardwork I've put in during the past 2 years. :) Now I've got to buckle down and hit the "Project Management" books again ! :-x It should be worth it though ! :P :D

Peanuts can whistle

What an end to a very slow week, I mean nothing can beat a dragging week but a dull Friday ! ;) The problem with dull Fridays is that they make you think that bad ideas are actually good ! :P we've been trying to teach our pet parrot (Peanuts) to talk for ages with no success, so I decided on spending the whole day teaching her to at least say "HI" (had to do it, especially after watching "Pirates of the Caribbean 2") :D. Anyway to cut a long story short ! After a couple of angry bites and loads of scratches, I am happy to announce that our dear Peanuts have finally managed to whistle ! yes, not exactly what I was expecting but still she managed to mimic my whistle ! B) :D So next Friday I'll be teaching her "Yo Ho, Yo Ho! A pirate's life for me." :P

Peanuts enjoying the afternoon in the garden after earning it by mimicing my whistle

Watch your eyes !! :P

This image caught my eyes, quite literally ! weird but clever !

War, PC problems, Linux & using writely.com

Ok ! :-x this week is turning out to be such a draaaaag. With the situation in Lebanon getting worst by the day and the so called leading nations being such jackasses about the whole thing and ohhh don't even let me start on the Arab leaders. :-x

Anyway I decided to have my first geeky post :D; my Laptop have been giving me such a hassle so I decided to have a fresh M$ Windows installation ! I've done this loadsa times with no problems until today ! It was absolute chaos, don't know how it happened but it seems that I've muddled my partitions up (even fdisk couldn't fix them) and after going through one logical solution after another, I finally discovered that the M$ Windows installation CD does have a disk utility of some sort which luckily was able to solve the problem.

Deciding that Windows is unstable and is not my cup of tea anymore; for the millionth time; ;) :P I opted for a Linux installation (Novell's Suse Linux to be precise). Anyway to make the post as user friendly as possible; The Linux installation went smoothly (detecting all my hardware) I was up and running in 30 mins. and let me tell you all, it's heaven, stable, fast and flexible (not to mention the eye candy) ! Comparing the two OSs (Windows vs Linux) is just unfair on windows, it's almost like comparing a Ferrari with a Toyota XA (you all must've noticed how much I hate the XA by now).

Now with Linux up and running; and with nothing much left for me to do; it's back to blogging - using writely to post (finally got my invite) ! Yes; I know, that you've all missed me B) (I hope) so now that I'm back, get ready for more drivel ! :P

Israel is Left on a Long Leash !

One of the things which we've got accustom to in this region is the biasness which the American government shows towards the Israelis. Usually the Americans (government) would pretend that they are holding the stick from the middle and claim that they are having a non-biased approach to the ever escalating crisis, but not this time; they did NOT even bother with doing so.

The Bush administration just keeps doing what it does best; annoying people with its arrogance. This was apparent by Bush'’s refusal (last night) to rein in Israel as its close ally brought international condemnation by stepping up its offensive in Lebanon.

What are they waiting for? I mean more than "55 civilians have been killed in raids on Lebanon" Oh I forgot! :-x this is considered by the Bush Administration as self-defense, "arrestring trespassing Israeli soldiers" Now this is a crime against humanity, isn't it ?

As one senior Israeli official said: (We are by far the alpha dog in the region. The only question is the length of the leash). And there is little doubt among us "Arabs" that the hand holding the "leash" is an American one.

Bush has given the Israeli government plenty of slack to act as it wishes - as long as it does not commit too many foul acts against Lebanese civilians (amazing :-x). Wow ! we must be so cheap to the man who calls himself "the carrier of the torch of democracy and freedom". Even when Israel reaches the end of the lead, it can always count on stretching it a bit further.

We all remember 2002, when the Israeli forces re-invaded the West Bank, Israel paid only lip service to Mr Bush's call for a withdrawal.

So in closure, although I was very careful with my approval to Hezbollah'’s actions, this evening I've decided to come out of my silence for I am sick and tired of the way we have been treated for two decades by the Zionists & United States. It'’s time for the up rise, it's time for the open war ! :-x

Leaving you with the following pics:

Why The Airport ? It's used by civilians and not Hezbollah militants !

Are these Hizbolla's fighters ?

Gorilla Hideouts or just a suburb ?

Childhood Mischief (Childhood Memories pt.1)

Due to it being a verrrrryyyy slow Friday, I’ve decided to go down memory line. Most of my memories also involve my cousin and co-blogger Khalid.

My cousin and I were raised as brothers, which meant spending most of our time hanging out at our granny’s house (obviously a recipe for mischief).

One of my funniest childhood memories start’s (if the memory serves me right) by begging our grandmother for money (100 files each) :D to go to the shop which we managed to do easily using the (puppy eyes) maneuver. Now with the money bagged :D, feeling clever B) I suggested to Khalid that we should take a shortcut, to which he agreed with a bit of hesitance for this shortcut goes right through the “Drunken Aziz’s Territory”; Aziz was the neighborhood’s alchy and had quite a temper on him especially when it came to kids.

Anyhow taking one careful step after another the expected happened !! YES, we bumped into Aziz :O so instead of laying low, my DEAR cousin decided; and I don’t know where he got his courage from; to approach the guy and strike this short conversation:

** Aziz busy, doing something under his car’s bonnet (although drunk) **

Khalid: Ehm ! Are you drunken Aziz ?

** Aziz Left’s his head with the scariest look in his glazed eyes, and the rest was history in the small dark neighborhood ! YES, Hell broke ! **

Aziz: Who are you calling drunk ? you little @#$% ! (grabs the nearset log and starts chasing us)

** In our haste to go to the shop we decided on wearing our grannies Scholl mules (which wasn’t exactly Nike sneakers) but we managed to leg it **



Now my grannie’s place used to face an ally where the rest of the neighborhoods kids used to play (our obvious destination). I still remember the havoc which started when we got there, kids were screaming hands on cheek (similar to a scene from the Godzilla movie) and running every where looking for a shelter from the flames of Aziz’s anger.

Anyway being older than Khalidm, I managed to jump a neighbor’s fence and hide in his garden while Khalid managed to hide in one of the allies. After what seemed like ages and after having numerous careful peeks (I, over the fence, Khalid, just off the corner of the ally) we managed to finally gather some courage and give it one last sprint to the safety of our grannie’s place, just to be greeted with a scolding and the most dreaded weapon of our youngest aunt a couple of drops from the Tabasco bottle in our mouths. :-x :P

P.S: will try finding old photos for this series of posts so bare with us ;) :P

Solve Your Problems By Doing a Zidane (YouTube)

Loads of piss takes were taken of the" ZZ Headbutt", This is a good one, I enjoyed the first 30 secs of it and then it just dragged on !! French sense of humor I guess !! :) :P



By the way did anybody else notice how things are getting out of hand, I mean ever since the WC Final, headbutts became so popular to the extent of publishing a wikipedia page related to the subject of headbutting with zidane's photo as an example !! Check it out :D

Au revoir ;)

Girlie Cars

What's with the japs ? First they come up with the Toyota Xa and now this ? :D I never doubted the Japanese engineering abilities but there is another thing which japs are good at "weirdness"! you've gotta give them that they are number one in anything they put their mind into. :P I received these images in an email titled "Girlie Cars" this morning and couldn't believe my eyes ! I would assume that these cars were modded in a TV show similar to the "Pimp My Car" one on MTV. I couldn't help but think whether these designs would be popular here ? Whether Bahraini girls would shell out their saving for such cars ? I certainly hope NOT ! :D

I mean "hello kitty" ? Come on !

Forza Azzuri!!!

The beautiful game turned vicious, even venomous Sunday. It was all still beautiful to Italy. And very ugly for France, which lost captain Zinedine Zidane with a red card after his nasty head butt in extra time, and then went down 5-3 in a shootout after a 1-1 draw. (AP)

Italy does it again, an amazing 4th world cup. Only Brazil has more now. The final was entertaining, nerve-racking and definately controversial at times. At the end of the day, Italy deserves to be on top of the world. The match fixing scandal only made the team stronger, just like what happened in 1982.

I don't know what to say about Zidane, ending a glorious career in an inglorious way, what a shame, what a waste. All I can say is "You must be ashamed of yourself". The BBC summarized this nicely: It was not meant to end like this for one of the game's legendary figures - sent from the world's biggest stage in shame and into retirement.

Here in london, the celebrations are wild, it's "fiesta" all night long. Tens of thousands of people line the streets, jumping, dancing, shouting. Wherever you look, it's green, white and red.

In the end, well done Germany, simply "more than a game". Hard luck France, you've done well. Last week, you were favourites to go out, now you're the second best team.

Last but not least, congratulazione Italia e FORZA RAGAZZI!!!!!

WanderingScribe (weirdest blog)

This gotta be the weirdest thing I ever came across on the web ! It seems that a homeless person from the UK managed to have her own BLOG which she called Wandering Scribe !

It's all laid that way, the blog owner becomes homeless, so she gets into her car and drives. She has nowhere to go, so she stays in the car, with all her possessions stacked in the back, sleeping in the front seats, parking in isolated streets.

No one notices her, because she makes sure she looks respectable, taking showers and even ironing her clothes in public places like hospitals. She has made herself invisible, out of touch from anyone she used to know, and keeping separate from other homeless people.

But this is the information age. And even though she doesn't speak to anyone, she goes into a library where she accesses the internet and writes an online journal (a homelessness blog "if you like") which she uses to describe all her unspoken experiences and feelings.

I couldn't help but have sympathy for the lady and decided to have her on my weekly hit list (due to her posting on weekly basis), The blog is written in a well structured manner which indicates that the lady is educated and have fallen into this due to bad fortune. Anyway I would recommend this blog TRUST ME, this is a blog worth visiting !

Bahrain has lost an icon

I woke up early this morning just to be greeted by the dreadful news of the passing away of one of our leading national icons (Mr Ahmed Althawadi).

Mr. Althawadi spent his life serving the spectrum of our society in a long trip riddled with pain and sacrifice, where he spent 50 years in exile until the King’s generous decision to have him (among other national activists) return home.

This is a huge loss to our nation; we have lost a man who believed in a country for all, fair to all, he believed in a Better and fairer Bahrain; to the contrary of the current (so called) activists who believe in taking us back to the dark ages.

Rest in peace Sir, for you have suffered enough.

Drinking is BAD !! LoL

A heads up, this is very funny, it's a killer !! heheheh
This youtube shows the negative affects of drinking !! The guy is totally out of it !!! Checkout the hole he leaves !!

Films based on novels !! (a movie rant)

One of the things I keep promising myself is that I would never go to a movie of which I’ve read its book. This promise I gave myself when I went to watch “Hannibal” (after reading the book) just to discover that the movie is absolute kak in comparison with the novel itself ! Now I know that there is no chance of a film beating the original novel in the amount of detail provided but still, nowadays with all the advances in the use of multimedia and special effects, you’d expect that the film would cast a different angle or point of view to what you’ve read already. I find films based on novels always lack to do so and always fall a bit short (lacks the final wow factor).

So what sparked this movie rant ? Well sadly I keep breaking promises which I give myself !! :P Last night, I went to (Don’t judge me, kept my promise for a month B)) “The Da Vinci code”. The movie started in a good manner which made me think “that this might not be such a bad idea after all”. I liked how the director added the nice memory flashbacks and all :O, but it seemed to me nearing the end of the movie that things were starting to get shallow in details (it seemed to me that 3 to 4 chapters were left out) :-x hence changing the conclusion of the story. So while I rate the novel very highly, I’d give the film itself 3.5 stars at most. And will give you this advice my friends “NEVER go to a film in which you’ve read its novel” rent it maybe, but don’t bother of making a night out of it!!

Fender Bender

Well, I haven't been posting during the past couple of days because of a (wee) car accident that I had. I have been very depressed(my beautiful baby is hurt) ! :( :P And no matter what my family and close friends say nothing uplifted me !! Now don't get me wrong the car wasn't exactly destroyed (just a fender bender) but I think it's the fact that this is the most expensive thing I ever bought in my life (with my own money)! :P What angers me now is that the other party involved in the accident are:

1- Trying to suck as much as they can from the insurance company (I am the one at fault)thus affecting my credit ! :-x

2- The person involved was laughing, joking and walking (totally normal) until the traffic wardens came. Then started to act as if they are in pain thus needing to go to the hospital (to suck more money) ! :-x

3- The person involved never submitting the accident report to the traffic wardens HQ so that the whole nightmare is put to rest. Although a date was set !! The person just showed how arrogant he was by switching his mobile off. :-x

4- This is my first ever accident !

So now it's the weekend, I am stuck at home with my car in the garage and waiting for the arrogant ones to get a move on, on saterday !!

Having fun at work!!!

Well, this is not just an ordinary trick that you can try on your work buddies or even flat mates, but it can have severe consequences, as you'll see. I have to warn you though, this video is freaking funny (made me roll on the floor).

Enjoy it :).

I Hate Your Team !! (LOL)

I am having a very hard time today thinking of a subject to write about on the blog. I am afraid that I have a thought draught (does such a thing exist ?) so I decided to post this great video of the team I mostly hate (Manchester United).

Enjoy

Sectarianism in Bahrain

Reading about the un-modernized incident in our Parliament, I couldn't help but think about the problem which runs below the surface of our (supposedly) close knitted community.

Sectarianism, a word which every sane educated person would quiver just by hearing in his/her present, has sadly become something of the norm here in Bahrain. :(

I am shocked by Mr Mohammed Khalid's comment towards one of his shi'ite brothers in the parliament, but still the reaction taken by the other party involved was unforgivable (I mean throwing a punch ?) :-x

Now do not get me wrong, Mr. Khalid's comments were totally out of order and intolerable, but it did NOT require such an extreme immature measure (which only school kids would refer to).
But we are used to such shenanigans from our parliament anyway. :(

What annoyed me the most was what I have been reading all over the net form Bahrainis which demonstrated their rigid adherence to their respective sects. :-x

I am sick and tired of sectarianism, please lets stop this ! Ask yourselves fellow Bahrainis what's the gain of it all ? Is it about who's right or wrong (religion wise)? Surely NOT; because we are all from the same religion. Is it about rights ? Surely NOT; because we are all in the same boat. So if it's neither, then what is it all about ? Please tell me because I'm lost ! :-x

The English language

While having one of my usual skype sessions with my mate (Tim), we got into the subject of the expressions used in the English language. So I decided to share some of those expressions with you all on the blog.


1- “You know where you can stick it”; why do we always assume that everyone knows where to stick it? Suppose that you don’t know, suppose you are a new guy !! you’ll have absolutely no idea where to stick it.

2-“Undisputed heavy weight champion”; well if its undisputed, what’s all the fighting about ?

3-“The country went to the dogs”; hmmm how? And what will they do with it? I mean where did all the humans go?

4- “It’s the quite ones you gotta watch”; this is my favorite, you know, when there is a story about a serial killer on TV and they bring on one of those annoying neighbors, and the neighbor always seems to come out with the same answer:

Reporter: What was Hannibal like ?

Neighbor: Well, he was always very quite.

Tim & I seemed to agree that this is a very dangerous assumption, because I assure you while you are at Starbucks watching the quite guy in the corner, it will always be the noisy guys who starts the trouble.

5- “Lock them up and through away the key”; I mean come on !! This is really stupid, where are you going to through the key? Right out the front door of prison? HIS friends will find it ! I mean how far can you through a key ? 10-15m tops!! This is the most stupid idea and needs to be completely rethought. :-)

6- “Takes the cake” as in “man, this guy really takes the cake”, :-S where ? where do you take a cake ? to the cinema

7- “The greatest thing since slice bread”; Good god ! so this is it, huh ? a couple of hundred thousand years ! I wonder what ever happened to the pyramids, Suez Canal, the wall of china I mean even a lava lamp to me is greater than slice bread! What’s the deal? You get a knife and a loaf of bread and then slice the thing !! not exactly rocket science .

8- “Never teach a pig to sing, it will get frustrated and only annoy you”; Now why would you do that ? A pig? Well I guess it’s a good thing that we don’t have ‘em here! Or somebody would’ve tried it !

That's it from me, please guys feel free to add ones that I have missed !!

Stickies.tk ver 2.0

I've been working on the blog today, by trying methods to improve it and perhaps making it more interactive. The whole process took me about 12 hours but I am very pleased with the result so far. I am still experimenting so please ignore any annoying mistakes. :) I am still looking to add a couple of things and then I swear I'll stop tinkering !! So I guess it's time to unleash stickies.tk ver 2.0 and for me to hit the sack.